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THE PHILOSOPHY OF
SCHOPENHAUER

Edited, with an Introduction
by IRWIN EDMAN

The philosopher of the hopelessness of
the human predicament, Schopenhauer
is the oracle of the young and the dis-
enchanted. For those who dream of the
unattainable and those who attain the
sad reality of a dream, the cynical in-
cisiveness of his writings has a singu-
lar charm and persuasion. This volume,
edited by the foremost authority on
Schopenhauer in America, Professor
Irwin Edman, includes in essence the
masterpiece. The World as Will and
Idea, and all of the famous essay. The
Metaphysics of the Love of the Sexes.

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Edited, with an introduction 6y IRWIN EDMAN

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INTRODUCTION

The popularity of Schopenhauer with a large un^
academic public is easily explained. Part of the explanation
is to be found in the extraordinarily vivacious and luxurious
discourse that was his medium. He is one of the great
German prose writers, and even in translation there is the
tang of sense, the pungency of realistic observation in his
pages. But there is something more. He seems to the re-
flective layman to have hit upon the inner essence and
divined the essential tragedy of human existence. His
philosophy is not the closet dialectic of the schools, though
even in the dialectical branches of thought he is nobody's
fool; it is philosophy in the old and appealing m.eaning of
wisdom of life. The plain man here recognises some-
thing he has long felt and never articulated. This philoso-
phy is the alert, half-sad, half -cynical harvest of a candid
eye. That is why lawyers and men of the world, ac-
quainted with the disillusioned realms of experience, why
adolescents just waking up from their own dreams, have
found in Schopenhauer a philosophy they could feel at
home with. Schopenhauer's philosophy is the Pathetique
Symphony of nineteenth-century thought. Like that popu-
lar piece of musical Weltshmerz, it has its limitations.
These any technical student of philosophy is free to point
out, as is also any classical critic of the romantic tempera-
ment. There is at once in these pages a high hand with
the philosophical respectabilities and a soft luxuriance with
grief that are the despair of the sober technician in philoso-
phy and the reposeful classicists in literature. But below

VI INTRODUCTION

the carelessness of technique and the irony and picy there
is a high, impeccable and irrefutable insight. The Western
;«^orld has nowhere found a more complete exposition of
^he essence of things as it appears to those who live by
sm.pulse, and the tragedy of things for those who know that
impulse must always be partially frustrated, and the life
ihat generates impulse ultimately doomed. Instead of try-
ing, as so many philosophers have tried, to resolve the dis-
cords of experience into a smooth and illusory coherence,
Schopenhauer faced those discords and built his philosophy
upon them. This disillusioning feat of picturesque honesty
^as impressed those who have found most other philosophies
systems of obscure optimism.

The biography of a philosopher is, under the aspect of
iternity, irrelevant to his life. What a man says and what
that saying signifies is the sole just preoccupation of
A philosophical critic. It is, in a profound sense, none of
liis business why a thinker came to say the things he did
,")r why he chose to say them in the particular fashion for
N»vhich he is famous. Yet in the case of Schopenhauer, if
(^ver, the life illuminates the doctrine and the philosophy
IS an expression of the man. The pessimism, the ill-temper,
v'he sallies of poetic insight and of realistic perception, the
obsession with the obsession of sex, the fulminations against
icademic philosophers and the failure to exemplify their
virtues, all seem to be functions of the life Schopenhauer
|\ed and the man he was. Born at Danzig, on February 22,
J 7 88, he was brought up in the family of a wealthy mer-
(:hant. A streak of insanity ran in the paternal side of
ihe family, and the death of Schopenhauer's father in a
jianal at Hamburg seemed to be a suicide. In his life,
Schopenhauer was moody, high strung, and so great a lover
of liberty that when the free city of Danzig lost its in-
dependence to Poland, in 1793, he moved to Hamburg.
Schopenhauer's mother, one* of the popular novelists of her

INTRODUCTION «i=.

day, on her husband's death moved to Weimar, where her
salon became the center of the intellectual and literary
colony gathered there. Schopenhauer and his mother could
not bear each other's company, and after a definite quarrel
during which the mother pushed her son downstairs, he left
Weimar, never to see his mother again.

Schopenhauer, on his father's death, took a course in the
Gymnasium; later, on an allowance from his mother, a
university course. During this intellectual education, he
lived the life of a worldling and a man about town. He
was almost influenced by Fichte to join a war of liberation
against Napoleon, but he himself thought that "Napoleon
only gave untrammelled and concentrated utterance to that
self-assertion and lust for more life which weaker mortals
feel, but most perforce disguise."

Schopenhauer won his doctor's degree by his dissertation
on the fourfold root of sufficient reason, published in 1833,
which turned out to be the cornerstone of his system. This
book is the intellectual foundation of his major work, "The
World as Will and Idea." It is a clear analysis of the prin-
ciple of causation, in its physical, logical, and metaphysical
senses. The first edition of Schopenhauer's masterpiece
attracted comparatively no attention. In 1836 "The Will
in Nature" was published, in 1844 the enlarged edition of
"The World as Will and Idea." His final two works were
the "Ground Problem of Ethics," published in 1 841, and
two substantial volumes of "Parerga et Paridipomena,"
translated into English as the "Essays."

Schopenhauer had a brief, inglorious adventure into aca-
demic life. In 1822 he was invited to lecture at the Uni-
versity of Berlin as Privat Docent. Choosing the same hours
as Hegel, then the reigning lord in philosophy, he found h:s
classrooms empty of students. He resigned in disgust, and,
a little later, fleeing the cholera epidemic in Berlin, went to
Frankfort, where he settled down for the remainder of his

rifi INTRODUCTION

life. He died there at seventy-two. He lived modestly on an
income from an interest in his father's firm, travelled a
little in Italy, but for the most part lived out his life in a
boarding house, having for his sole friend and companion
a dog. Despite the fact that the universities ignored him, his
philosophy gained fame, and what is more, an ardent per-
sonal following among men of affairs and men of the
world. Praise came to him from Wagner for his philosophy
of music and from Nietzsche for his philosophy of will. At
seventy, he was a world figure. At seventy-two he died alone,
on September 21, i860.

There is little in his life to stir one to personal admira-
tion. It is that of a rather sharp, vain recluse, haunted in his
earlier years by sex, in his later ones by the lust for fame
and an embittered contempt of his academic contemporaries.
His fears of poison and of violence, his ungoverned fury
about women, his cynical underscoring of all the seamy sides
of human conduct, the absence in his life of every tie of
affection, do not make an amiable figure. But on the credit
side must be placed a genuine metaphysical zeal, a fanatic
devotion to his conception of truth, and the passion of a
romantic poet.

The philosophy of Schopenhauer takes its cue, almost bor-
rows its technique, from Kant. The latter had instituted "A
Copernican revolution" in philosophy by declaring that the
apparent structure of nature was truly a structure of appear-
ance: the forms of understanding constituted the apparent
order of things. Schopenhauer agreed with Kant, on this
general point, and gave the point his own formulation. "All
the furniture of Heaven and earth was an appearance whose
constitution was determined by the principle of suflficient
reason, that fourfold form of those connections by which
the understanding understood," and in understanding which
it constituted the phenomenal world. The whole apparently
so solid world of matter is simply the nexus of things in

INTRODUCTION ix

time and space, a nexus which is simply another name for
jthe law of causation, itself an unescapable form of the
understanding. It is unnecessary to follow Schopenhauer in
,his detailed analysis of the forms of the principle of suffi-
cient leason, those orders of physical, logical, mathematical,
and moral determinants which regulate our knowledge of,
which constitute and guarantee the nature of, the world of
phenomena. It is unnecessarily superfluous for the under-
standing of his position to trace his analysis of perception and
conception and the relation between them. The whole of
Book I, which is concerned with these, is done with engaging
lucidity, though its analysis of mathematics is questionable.
But the whole of it is aimed to make just one fundamental
point. It is the logical prelude to a discussion of the realm
of the real. It is an analysis of that intellectual schema of
the mind wnich confines knowledge always to knowledge
of appearances.

It is a critique of the world that knowledge reveals. The
objective world which seems indeed so objective is indeed
truly so. It is object for a subject, and the nature of its
objectivity is determined by the nature of that knowledge
which the subject may have. The whole of that cosmos which
the materialist boasts to be matter, is matter surely enough.
But matter is itself simply another name for causation;
causation is the union of space and time; space and time are
forms of understanding; save that they are the subject's
avenues of knowledge, there would be no matter. The
world, for each individual, is his "idea" of it. It is not in
that "world as idea" that reality is to be found. Reality in
the ordinary sense is unknowable, since what is knowable is
only the order of appearances. This whole external world
is simply a construction of the intellect, and the intellect is
simply the instrument that arises in the service of that inner
reality which each of us experiences as the desire which he
is aware of in his own body, in his physical tensions, in his

X INTRODUCTION

unconscious strivings, in his will. That Will, which alone
is immediately known to us, is recognised, too, in Nature.
From the pull of gravitation and the tendency of crystals to
form a pattern, from the movements of the stars to the con-
sciously directed volitions of man, the inner nature of things
is not that world which the intellect knows, but that Will
which the individual experiences in his own blind impulses
and which he finds exemplified and repeated on a cosmic
scale in the inner processes of Nature.

Kant had found the Reality in an Unknowable that was
posited as an act of practical reason or Faith. For Schopen-
hauer, the Unknowable Reality is that Will in the interests
of which Knowledge arises, that Will which is a blind striv-
ing, in whose service the slavish intellect constructs a practi-
cal and illusive world. It is a will toward no rational end.
It is a blind will to live. In human beings it cloaks itself
with sophistries of intellect and rational excuses. In brute
and in unconscious nature, it operates with naked blindness.

"Spinoza says that if a stone which has been projected
through the air, had consciousness, it would believe that it
was moving of its own free will. I add this only, that the
stone would be right. The impulse given it is for the stone
what the motive is for me, and what in the case of the
stone appears as cohesion, gravitation, rigidity, is in its inner
nature the same as that which I recognise in myself as will,
and what the stone also, if knowledge were given to it,
would recognise as will."

Schopenhauer recognises several important facts as point-
ing toward the universal and unified reality that is the Will.
One is inner teleology, the harmonious connivances of organs
to the fulfillment of an end; another is the recognisable
types and unities in all the multifarious variety of transient
individuals that to knowledge constitute the picture of Na-
ture. Individuals vary in time and space; they are variables
and temporal instances of those invariant eternal grades of

INTRODUCTION xi'

objectification in which the unitary and universal Will mani-
fests itself.

Schopenhauer finds two grounds for pessimism in the fact
that the blind striving will is the inner reality of nature
and the essence of life. Those two grounds for pessimism
lie first in the fact that the will is doomed to privation. It is
striving because it is unfulfilled. Secondly, where it does
find fulfillment, that fulfillment turns out to be illusion.
Schopenhauer sings a long dirge of sadness, a long lugubrious
description of the way in which the human will oscillates
between sufiFering and boredom. Half of life is the stinging
pain of frustration, the other half the dull pain of boredom.
Schopenhauer is the apotheosis of romantic irony expressing
a romantic disgust over a world that does not meet the needs
of the assertive will, and the irony of that will which finds
the emptiness of what it thought it needed.

There is nothing for Schopenhauer, then, but to seek some
method of salvation and escape. Happiness is impossible since
where one thought one was going to obtain it, one finds
nothing but unhappiness. The most that one can hope for is
a Quietistic redemption. That is possible for brief moments
in the world of Art, for the world of Art as Schopenhauer
describes it in his Book III is the world as Platonic idea. In
the quite momentary contemplation of Art and in the pro-
ductions of genius the human will recognises those eternal
grades of the will, its changeless essences which outlive the
vicissitudes of change itself, and are shining and implacable
archetypes in which the will may escape change and time,
sufiFering and disillusion. In the rapt contemplation of the
sculptured essence of man, men may escape the restless striv-
ing of their own souls and the restless and innumerable tem-
poral vanities of individual men. In the experience of the
eternal types and patterns of love in lyric poetry men may
escape the pains and frustrations of their own transient loves
and tragedies of life, And in the flow and movement of

xii INTRODUCTION

music the will recognises in the intimate and poignant stream
of sound its own intimate and poignant life. If the plastic
and the literary arts reveal the eternal forms jf the world,
it is in music that the will itself is immediately rendered.
And so for Schopenhauer music is the most perfect and suc-
cessful of the arts since it reveals the will with immediacy
and urgency to itself.

But the arts provide only moments of escape. From the
changing and distracting world of time they permit brief
flights into the timeless and will-less perception of artistic
contemplation. Scientific and practical knowledge are
bounded by the provincial demands, personal cravings, the
temporal distractions of the will. In the arts one escapes at
once the world of illusion that is the world of knowledge,
the world of pain and disillusion, that is the world as will.
But one escapes for moments only, one returns with in-
creased bitterness with the world of things in time and space
to the rude pressure of desire. There must if one is to attain
this, if not happiness, be a more radical way of escape. That
is provided in Schopenhauer^s analysis not by the momentary
escape of the aesthete, but by the eternal escape of the ascetic.
Since the world out of which all pain and ennui flow is
itself an objectification of the will, if one denies the will,
one denies the world. To become profoundly and radically
ascetic is the way to peace and to Nirvana. By a radical denial
of the world, one escapes the world, for with the denial of
the will the world is destroyed. That radical denial is
possible through the discovery that Buddha, from whom
Schopenhauer learned so much, made so long ago. When
through the insight of sympathy it is recognised that one's
own sufferings are part of that universal suffering which is
the penalty of the assertion of a blind will doomed to frus-
tration, then the futility of one's own will against that of
others, then the misery involved in the assertion of will at
all becomes evident- Insight produces sympathy and sym-

INTRODUCTION xiii

pathy produces saintlfness. The artist and the ascetic escape
from the world into a momentary and paradisial vision of
the eternal quietudes of the arts. A saint escapes by reducing
the world to nothingness, the denial of his own imperious
and blind and indubitably frustrative will. To become a
saint by abnegation is to be at peace. Suicide which might
seem a more easy and immediate escape is for Schopenhauer
no escape at all, for suicide is simply a more emphatic and
petulant assertion of the will. It is a distraction of the body
which is simply one instance of the will ; it is not the denial
of that universal blind striving will which is the source of
all suffering. Schopenhauer offers us the choice of two ways
out of the sufferings and disillusions of life. One, the amia-
ble transient way of the fine arts; two, the sanctified and
eternal way of the saint.

"The World as Will and Idea" is of course Schopert'
hauer's masterpiece, but his "Essays," too, have had a singular
power of suasion, illumination and charm to innumerable
readers whom the ordinary academic philosopher can neither
persuade, illuminate nor charm. Some of his essays are fa-
mous for a kind of obstreperous cynicism such as his essay on
women ; some are notable for their sudden incisive light on
intellectual method or conception as in his essay on history**
But it is his major work that will always remain of the
chiefest interest. For all of its extravagance or perhaps be-
cause of it he will remain the urbane spokesman of all those
who remain throughout life at once wistful and disillu-
sioned, and recognise the facts of experience and wish that
they were not so. His rank as a metaphysician has never
been very high, his idealism is both second hand and largely
borrowed from Kant, and for all its parade of logical
apparatus, it is none too consistent or convincing. His de-
lineation of the characteristic dilemma of the romantic will
which can never get what it wants and can never love what
it gets is unsurpassed in the history of thought. His pages on

xiv INTRODUCTION

the insight of genius and the quality of aesthetic perception,
his luminous suggestions on the art of music, his dramatic
and vivid rendering of that pity and that negation which
constitute the life of saintliness will give him a permanent
place.

He was the first one, too, in the history of thought em-
phatically to insist on the primacy of will over intellect,
on the instrumental character of mind in life and in philoso-
phy. He started a movement to which James, Bergson, and
Dewey owe not a little. And he combines in his writings the
elements of three usually distinct and disparate personalities,
a man of the world, a man of thought, and a man of letters.
The net result in his case was one of the unparalleled works
of art in the history of philosophy; "The World as Will and
Idea" remains a piece of speculative literature by a writer
with the imagination of a poet and the precision of an ob-
serving realist. It was his: imagination that, borrowing its
materials from Kantian idealism, constructed a highly ro-
mantic metaphysical world; it was his realism that gave
him a sense of the suffering, injustices, and disillusions of
life. It is this combination that has made him appeal at once
to the perpetual adolescence of life and to hard-headed
middle-aged realists. He remains one of the very great
second-raters in the history of European thought, and a per-
manent exposition of that mood which beginning with the
self frets at an unsatisfactory cosmos, and in the midst of
which it does not seek what seems impossible happiness, but
from which it tries to escape to a heaven of quietude and
peace. It is a quaint irony that Schopenhauer, at heart a
cynical epicurean, should have become the vade mecum of
the aesthete and the spiritual ascetic. In whatever quarrels
one may find with his philosophy, his prose will always re-
main immitigably convincing.

New York Irwin Edman

Ma-n, 1938

First Book
THE WORLD AS IDEA

FIRST ASPECT

THE IDEA SUBORDINATED TO THE PRINCIPLE OF SUF-
FICIENT reason: the object of experience

AND SCIENCE

Sors de I'enfance, ami reveille toi!

— Jean Jacques Rousseau,

THE PHILOSOPHY OF
SCHOPENHAUER

§ I. "The world is my idea": — this is a truth wh.ch
holds good for everything that lives and know^s, thoi;gh
man alone can bring it into reflective and abstract conscious-
ness. If he really does this, he has attained to philosoph cal
wisdom. It then becomes clear and certain to him :hat
what he knows is not a sun and an earth, but only an eye that
sees a sun, a hand that feels an earth; that the world \^ hich
surrounds him is there only as idea, i.e., only in relati(»n to
something else, the consciousness, which is himself. li any
truth can be asserted a frior'ty it is this: for it is the expn ssion
of the most general form of all possible and thinkable
experience: a form which is more general than time, or
space, or causality, for they all presuppose it; and each of
these, which we have seen to be just so many modes of the
principle of sufficient reason, is valid only for a paiticulaf
class of ideas; whereas the antithesis of object and subject v>
the common form of all these classes, is that forn)
under which alone any idea of whatever kind it may be,
abstract or intuitive, pure or empirical, is possible and think-
able. No truth therefore is more certain, more independent
of all others, and less in need of proof than this, that al)
that exists for knowledge, and therefore this whole world,
is only object in relation to subject, perception of a per-
ceiver, in a word, idea. This is obviously true of the past

3

4 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

and the future, as well as of the present, of what is farthest
off, as of what is near; for it is true of time and space them-
selves, in which alone these distinctions arise. All that in
any way belongs or can belong to the world is inevitably
thus conditioned through the subject, and exists only for the
subject. The world is idea.

This truth is by no means new. It was implicitly in-
volved in the sceptical reflections from which Descartes
started. Berkeley, however, was the first who distinctly
enunciated it, and by this he has rendered a permanent
service to philosophy, even though the rest of his teaching
should not endure. Kant's primary mistake was the neglect
of this principle, as is shown in the appendix. How early
again this truth was recognised by the wise men of India,
appearing indeed as the fundamental tenet of the Vedanta
philosophy ascribed to Vyasa, is pointed out by Sir William
Jones in the last of his essays: "On the philosophy of the
Asiatics" (Asiatic Researches, vol. iv., p. 164), where he
says, "The fundamental tenet of the Vedanta school con-
sisted not in denying the existence of matter, that is, of
solidity, impenetrability, and extended figure (to deny which
would be lunacy), but in correcting the popular notion of
it, and in contending that it has no essence independent of
mental perception; that existence and perceptibility are
convertible terms." These words adequately express the
compatibility of empirical reality and transcendental ideality.

In this first book, then, we consider the world only from
this side, only so far as it is idea. The inward reluctance
with which any one accepts the world as merely his idea,
warns him that this view of it, however true it may be, is
nevertheless one-sided, adopted in consequence of some
arbitrary abstraction. And yet it is a conception from which
he can never free himself. The defectiveness of this view
will be corrected in the next book by means of a truth which
is not so immediately certain as that from which we start

THE WORLD AS IDEA 5

here; a truth at which we can arrive only by deeper research
and more severe abstraction, by the separation of what is
different and the union of what is identical. This truth,
which must be very serious and impressive if not awful to
every one, is that a man can also say and must say, "the
world is my will."

In this book, however, we must consider separately that
aspect of the world from which we start, its aspect as know-
able, and therefore, in the meantim.e, we must, without
reserve, regard all presented objects, even our own bodies
(as we shall presently show more fully), merely as ideas,
and call them merely ideas. By so doing we always abstract
from will (as we hope to make clear to every one further
on), which by itself constitutes the other aspect of the
world. For as the world is in one aspect entirely ideay so
in another it is entirely will. A reality which is neither
of these two, but an object in itself (into which the thing
in itself has unfortunately dwindled in the hands of Kant),
is the phantom of a dream, and its acceptance is an ignis
fatuus in philosophy.

§ 2. That which knows all things and is known by nont
is the subject. Thus it is the supporter of the world, that
condition of all phenomena, of all objects which is always
presupposed throughout experience; for all that exists,
exists only for the subject. Every one finds himself to be
subject, yet only in so far as he knows, not in so far as he
is an object of knowledge. But his body is object, and there-
fore from this point of view we call it idea. For the body
is an object among objects, and is conditioned by the laws
of objects, although it is an immediate object. Like all
objects of perception, it lies within the universal forms
of knowledge, time and space, which are the conditions
of multiplicity. The subject, on the contrary, which is
always the knower, never the known, does not come under
these forms, but is presupposed by them; it has therefore

6 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

neither multiplicity nor its opposite unity. We never know
it, but it is always the knower wherever there is knowledge.
So then the world as idea, the only aspect in which
we consider it at present, has two fundamental, necessary,
and inseparable halves. The one half is trte object, the
forms of which are space and time, and through these multi-
plicity. The other half is the subject, which is not in space
and time, for it is present, entire and undivided, in every
percipient being. So that any one percipient being, with the
object, constitutes the whole world as idea just as fully as
the existing millions could do; but if this one were to
disappear, then the whole world as idea would cease to be.
These halves are therefore inseparable even for thought,
for each of the two has meaning and existence only through
and for the other, each appears with the other and vanishes
with it. They limit each other immediately; where the
object begins the subject ends. The universality of this
limitation is shown by the fact that the essential and hence
universal forms of all objects, space, time, and causality,
may, without knowledge of the object, be discovered and
fully known from a consideration of the subject, i.e., in
Kantian language, they lie a friori in our consciousness.
That he discovered this is one of Kant's principal merits,
and it is a great one. I however go beyond this, and maintain
that the principle of sufficient reason is the general expres-
sion for all these forms of the object of which we are
a friori conscious; and that therefore all that we know
purely a friori is merely the content of that principle and
what follows from it; in it all our certain a friori knowl-
edge is expressed. In my essay on the principle of sufficient
reason I have shown in detail how every possible object
comes under it; that is, stands in a necessary relation to
other objects, on the one side as determined, on the other
side as determining: this is of such wide application, that
the whole existence of all objects, so far as they are objects,

THE WORLD AS IDEA 7

ideas and nothing more, may be entirely traced to this their
necessary relation to each other, rests only in it, is in fact
merely relative; but of this more presently. I have furthei
shown, that the necessary relation which the principle of
sufficient reason expresses generally, appears in other forms
corresponding to the classes into which objects are divided,
according to their possibility; and again that by these forms
the proper division of the classes is tested. I take it for
granted that what I said in this earlier essay is known and
present to the reader, for if it had not been already said it
would necessarily find its place here.

§ 3. The chief distinction among our ideas is that be-
tween ideas of perception and abstract ideas. Tlie latter
form just one class of ideas, namely concepts, and these
are the possession of man alone of all creatures upon earth.
The capacity for these, which distinguishes him from all
the lower animals, has always been called reason.^ We
shall consider these abstract ideas by themselves later, but,
in the first place, we shall speak exclusively of the ideas of
ferceftion. These comprehend the whole visible world, or
the sum total of experience, with the conditions of its
possibility. We have already observed that it is a highly im-
portant discovery of Kant's, that these very conditions,
these forms of the visible world, i.e., the absolutely uni-
versal element in its perception, the common property of all
its phenomena, space and time, even when taken by them-
selves and apart from their content, can, not only be thought
in the abstract, but also be directly perceived; and that this
perception or intuition is not some kind of phantasm arising
from constant recurrence in experience, but is so entirely
independent of experience that we must rather regard the

^ Kant is the only writer who has confused this idea of reason^
and in this connection I refer the reader to the Appendix, and also to
my "Grundproblerae der Ethik": Grundl. dd. Moral. § 6, pp 148'
tS4, first and second editions.

8 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

latter as dependent on it, inasmuch as the qualities of space
and time, as they are known in a 'priori perception or intui-
tion, are valid for all possible experience, as rules to which
it must invariably conform. Accordingly, in my essay on
the principle of sufficient reason, I have treated space and
time, because they are perceived as pure and empty of con-
tent, as a special and independent class of ideas. This quality
of the universal forms of intuition, which was discovered
by Kant, that they may be perceived in themselves and
apart from experience, and that they may be known as
exhibiting those laws on which is founded the infallible
science of mathematics, is certainly very important. Not
less worthy of remark, however, is this other quality of
time and space, that the principle of sufficient reason, which
conditions experience as the law of causation and of motive,
^nd thought as the law of the basis of judgment, appears
here in quite a special form, to which I have given the
name of the ground of being. In time, this is the succession
of its moments, and in space the position of its parts,
which reciprocally determine each other ad infinitum.

Any one who has fully understood from the introductory
^ay the complete identity of the content of the principle
jf sufficient reason in all its different forms, must also be
convinced of the importance of the knowledge of the sim-
plest of these forms, as affording him insight into his own
inmost nature. This simplest form of the principle we have
found to be time. In it each instant is, only in so far as it
has effaced the preceding one, its generator, to be itself in
turn as quickly effaced. The past and the future (considered
apart from the consequences of their content) are empty
as a dream, and the present is only the indivisible and un-
enduring boundary between them. And in all the other
forms of the principle of sufficient reason, we shall find
the same emptiness, and shall see that not time only but
also space, and the whole content of both of them, ue,^ alj

THE WORLD AS IDEA 9

that proceeds from causes and motives, has a merely relative
existence, is only through and for another like to itself, i.e.^
not more enduring. The substance of this doctrine is old:
k appears in Heraclitus when he laments the eternal flux
of things; in Plato w^hen he degrades the object to that
which is ever becoming, but never being; in Spinoza as the
doctrine of the mere accidents of the one substance which
is and endures. Kant opposes what is thus known as the
mere phenomenon to the thing in itself. Lastly, the ancient
wisdom of the Indian philosophers declares, "It is Maya,
the veil of deception, which blinds the eyes of mortals, and
makes them behold a world of which they cannot say
either that it is or that it is not: for it is like a dream; it
is like the sunshine on the sand which the traveller takes
from afar for water, or the stray piece of rope he mistakes
for a snake." (These similes are repeated in innumerable
passages of the Vedas and the Puraiias.) But what all these
mean, and that of which they all speak, is nothing more
than what we have just considered — the world as idea
subject to the principle of sufficient reason.

§ 4. Whoever has recognised the form of the principle
of sufficient reason, which appears in pure time as such,
and on which all counting and arithmetical calculation rests,
has com.pletely mastered the nature of time. Time is noth-
ing more than that form of the principle of sufficient reason,
and has no further significance. Succession is the form of
the principle of sufficient reason in time, and succession is
the whole nature of time. Further, whoever has recognised
the principle of sufficient reason as it appears in the presenta-
tion of pure space, has exhausted the whole nature of
space, which is absolutely nothing more than that possibility
of the reciprocal determination of its parts by each other,
which is called position. The detailed treatment of this,
and the formulation in abstract conceptions of the results
which flow from it, so that they may be more conveniently

10 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER '

used, is the subject of the science of geometry. Thus also,
whoever has recognised the law of causation, the aspect of
the principle of sufficient reason which appears in what fills
these forms (space and time) as objects of perception, that
is to say, matter, has completely mastered the nature of mat-
ter as such, for matter is nothing more than causation, as
any one will see at once if he reflects. Its true being is its
action, nor can we possibly conceive it as having any other
meaning. Only as action does it fill space and time; its
action upon the immediate objects (which is itself matter)
determines that perception in which alone it exists. The
consequence of the action of any material object upon any
other, is know^n only in so far as the latter acts upon the
Imm.ediate object in a different way from that in which it
acted before; it consists only of this. Cause and effect thus
constitute the whole nature of matter; its true being is its
action. (A fuller treatment of this will be found in the
essay on the Principle of Sufficient Reason, § 2i, p. 77.)
The nature of all material things is therefore very ap-
propriately called in German Wirklichkeit^ a word which
is far more expressive than Realitat. Again, that which is
acted upon is always matter, and thus the whole being and
pssence of matter consists in the orderly change, which one
part of it brings about in another part. The existence of
matter is therefore entirely relative, according to a relation
which is valid only within its limits, as in the case of time
and space.

But time and space, each for itself, can be mentally
presented apart from matter, whereas matter cannot be
so presented apart from time and space. The form which
is inseparable from it presupposes space, and the action in
which its very existence consists, always imports some
change, in other words a determination in time. But space

1 Mira in quibusdam rebus verborum proprietas est, et consuetudo
sermonis antiqui quaedam ef&cacissimis notis signal. Seneca^ epist. 81.

THE WORLD AS IDEA ii

and time are not only, each for itself, presupposed by mat*
ter, but a union of the two constitutes its essence, for this, aj
we have seen, consists in action, i.e.j in causation. All the
innumerable conceivable phenomena and conditions of
things, might be co-existent in boundless space, without limit-
ing each other, or might be successive in endless time without
interfering with each other: thus a necessary relation of
these phenomena to each other, and a law which should
regulate them according to such a relation, is by no means
needful, would not, indeed, be applicable: it therefore fol-
lows that in the case of all co-existence in space and change
in time, so long as each of these forms preserves for itself
its condition and its course without any connection with
the other, there can be no causation, and since causation
constitutes the essential nature of matter, there can be no
matter. But the law of causation receives its meaning and
necessity only from this, that the essence of change does
not consist simply in the mere variation of things, but
rather in the fact that at the same fart of sface there is
now one thing and then another y and at one and the same
point of time there is here one thing and there another:
only this reciprocal limitation of space and time by each
other gives meaning, and at the same time necessity, to a
law, according to which change must take place. What is
determined by the law of causality is therefore not merely
a succession of things in time, but this succession with
reference to a definite space, and not merely existence of
things in a particular place, but in this place at a different
point of time. Change, i.e.y variation which takes place
according to the law of causality, implies always a de-
termined part of space and a determined part of time to-
gether and in union. Thus causality unites space with time.
But we found that the whole essence of matter consisted
in action, i.e.y in causation, consequently space and time
must also be united in matter, tliat is to say, matter must

12 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

take to itself at once the distinguishing qualities both of
space anci time, however much these may be opposed to
each other, and must unite in itself what is impossible for
each of these independently, that is, the fleeting course of
time, with the rigid unchangeable perduration of space:
infinite divisibility it receives from both. It is for this
reason that we find that co-existence, which could neither
be in time alone, for time has no contiguity, nor in space
alone, for space has no before, after, or now, is first estab-
lished through matter. But the co-existence of many things
constitutes, in fact, the essence of reality, for through it
permanence first becomes possible; for p/crmanence is only
knowable in the change of something which is present along
with what is permanent, while on the other hand it is only
because something permanent is present along with what
changes, that the latter gains the special character of change,
i.e.y the mutation of quality and form in the permanence of
substance, that is to say, in matter.^ If the world were in
cpace alone, it would be rigid and immovable, without suc-
cession, without change, without action; but we know that
with action, the idea of matter first appears. Again, if the
world were in time alone, all would be fleeting, without
persistence, without contiguity, hence without co-existence,
and consequently without permanence; so that in this case
also there would be no matter. Only through the union of
space and time do we reach matter, and matter is the pos-
sibility of co-existence, and, through that, of permanence;
through permanence again matter is the possibility of the
persistence of substance in the change of its states.^ As
matter consists in the union of space and time, it bears
throughout the stamp of both. It manifests its origin in

1 It is shown in the Appendix that matter and substance are one.

2 This shows the ground of the Kantian explanation of matter,
that it is "that which is movable in space," for motion consists sim-
ply ia the union of space and time.

THE WORLD AS IDEA Si

space, partly through the form which is inseparable from
it, but especially through its persistence (substance), the
a friort certainty of which is therefore wholly deducible
from that of space ^ (for variation belongs to time alone,
but in it alone and for itself nothing is persistent). Matter
shows that it springs from time by quality ( accidents )»
without which it never exists, and which is plainly always
causality, action upon other matter, and therefore change
(a time concept). The law of this action, however, always
depends upon space and time together, and only thus obtains
meaning. The regulative function of causality is confined
entirely to the determination of what must occupy this
time and this sface. The fact that we know a friori the
unalterable characteristics of matter, depends upon this
derivation of its essential nature from the forms of ouf
knowledge of which we are conscious a friori.

But as the object in general is only for the subject, as
its idea, so every special class of ideas is only for an equally
special quality in the subject, which is called a faculty of
perception. This subjective correlative of time and space,
in themselves as empty forms, has been named by Kant pure
sensibility; and we may retain this expression, as Kant waj
the first to treat of the subject, though it is not exact, for
sensibility presupposes matter. The subjective correlative of
matter or of causation, for these two are the same, is under-
standing, which is nothing more than this. To know causal-
ity is its one function, its only power; and it is a great
one, embracing much, of manifold application, yet of
unmistakable identity in all its manifestations. Conversely
all causation, that is to say, all matter, or the whole of
reality, is only for the understanding, through the under-
standing, and in the understanding. The first, simplest, and
ever-present example of understanding is the perception of

^ Not, as Kant holds, from the knowledge of time, at; will be ex-
olained in the Appendix.

14 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

the actual world. This is throughout knowledge of the
cause from the effect, and therefore all perception is intel-
lectual. The understanding could never arrive at this per-
ception, however, if some effect did not become known
immediately, and thus serve as a starting-point. But this is
the affection of the animal body. So far, then, the animal
body is the Immediate object of the subject; the perception
of all other objects becomes possible through it. The changes
which every animal body experiences, are immediately
known, that is, felt; and as these effects are at once re-
ferred to their causes, the perception of the latter as objects
arises. This relation is no conclusion in abstract conceptions;
it does not arise from reflection, nor is it arbitrary, but
immediate, necessary, and certain. It is the method of
knowing of the pure understanding, without which there
could be no perception; there would only remain a dull
plant-like consciousness of the changes of the immediate
object, which would succeed each other in an utterly un-
meaning way, except in so far as they might have a meaning
for the will either as pain or pleasure. But as with the
rising of the sun the visible world appears, so at one stroke,
the understanding, by means of its one simple function,
changes the dull, meaningless sensation into perception.
What the eye, the ear, or the hand feels, is not perception;
it is merely its data. By the understanding passing from the
effect to the cause, the world first appears as perception ex-
tended in space, varying in respect of form, persistent
through all time in respect of matter; for the understand-
ing unites space and time in the idea of matter, that is,
causal action. As the world as idea exists only through the
understanding, so also it exists only for the understanding.
§ 5. It is needful to guard against the grave error of
supposing that because perception arises through the knowl-
edge jf causality, the relation of subject and object is that
of cause and effect. For this relation subsists only between

THE WORLD AS IDEA 15

the immediate object and objects known indirectly, thus
always between objects alone. It is this false supposition
that has given rise to the foolish controversy about the
reality of the outer world; a controversy in which dog«
matism and scepticism oppose each other, and the formei'
appears, now as realism, now as idealism. Realism treats the
object as cause, and the subject as its effect. The idealism
of Fichte reduces the object to the effect of the subject.
Since however, and this cannot be too much emphasised,
there is absolutely no relation according to the principle of
sufficient reason between subject and object, neither of
these views could be proved, and therefore scepticism
attacked them both with success. Now, just as the law oi
causality precedes perception and experience as their condi-
tion, and therefore cannot (as Hume thought) be derived
from them, so object and subject precede all knowledge,
and hence the principle of sufficient reason in general, as
its first condition; for this principle is merely the form of
all objects, the whole nature and possibility of their
existence as phenomena: but the object always presupposes
the subject; and therefore between these two there can be
no relation of reason and consequent. My essay on the
principle of sufficient reason accomplishes just this: it ex-
plains the content of that principle as the essential form
of every object — that is to say, as the universal nature of
all objective existence, as something which pertains to the
object as such; but the object as such always presupposes
the subject as its necessary correlative; and therefore the
subject remains always outside the province in which the
principle of sufficient reason is valid. The controversy as tc
the reality of the outer world rests upon this false extension
of the validity of the principle of sufficient reason to the
subject also, and starting with this mistake it can never
understand itself. On the one side realistic dogmatism^
looking upon the idea as the effect of the object, desires tc

t6 THE PHILOSOPPiY OF SCHOPENHAUER

separate these two, idea and object, which are really one,
and to assume a cause quite different from the idea, an
object in itself, independent of the subject, a thing which
is quite inconceivable; for even as object it presupposes
subject, and so remains its idea. Opposed to this doctrine
is scepticism, which makes the same false presupposition
that in the idea we have only the effect, never the cause,
therefore never real being; that we always know merely
the action of the object. But this object, it supposes, may
perhaps have no resemblance whatever to its effect, may
indeed have been quite erroneously received as the cause, for
the law of causality is first to be gathered from experience,
and the reality of experience is then made to rest upon it,
iTThus both of these views are open to the correction, firstly,
that object and idea are the same; secondly, that the true
being of the object of perception is its action, that the
reality of the thing consists in this, and the demand for an
existence of the object outside the idea of the subject, and
also for an essence of the actual thing different from its
action, has absolutely no meaning, and is a contradiction:
and tliat the knowledge of the nature of the effect of any
perceived object, exhausts such an object itself, so far as
it is object, i,e,y idea, for beyond this there is nothing more
to be known. So far then, the perceived world in space
and time, which makes itself known as causation alone, is
entirely real, and is throughout simply what it appears to
be, and it appears wholly and without reserve as idea,
bound together according to the law of causality. This is
its empirical reality. On the other hand, all causality is in
the understanding alone, and for the understanding. The
whole actual, that is, active world is determined as such
through the understanding, and apart from it is nothing.
This, however, is not the only reason for altogether denying
such a reality of the outer world as is taught by the
dogmatist, who explains its reality as its independence of

THE WORLD AS IDEA 17

'Jie subject. We also deny it, because n^ object apart from a
subject can be conceived without contradition. The whole
world of objects is and remains idea, and therefore wholljr
and for ever determined by the subject; that is to say, it has
transcendental ideality. But it is not therefore illusion or
mere appearance; it presents itself as that which it is, idea,
and indeed as a series of ideas of which the common bond
is the principle of sufficient reason. It is according to its
inmost meaning quite comprehensible to the healthy under-
standing, and speaks a language quite intelligible to it.
To dispute about its reality can only occur to a mind per-
verted by over-subtilty, and such discussion always arises
from a false application of the principle of sufficient reason,
which binds all ideas together of whatever kind they may
be, but by no means connects them with the subject, not
yet with a something which is neither subject nor object,
but only the ground of the object; an absurdity, for only
objects can be and always are the ground of objects. If we
examine more closely the source of this question as to the
reality of the outer world, we find that besides the false
application of the principle of sufficient reason generally to
what lies beyond its province, a special confusion of its
forms is also involved; for that form which it has only
in reference to concepts or abstract ideas, is applied to per-
ceived ideas, real objects; and a ground of knowing ij
demanded of objects, whereas they can have nothing but a
ground of being. Among the abstract ideas, the concept?
united in the judgment, the principle of sufficient reason
appears in such a way that each of these has its worth, it»
validity, and its whole existence, here called truth, simply
and solely through the relation of the judgment to some-
thing outside of it, its ground of knowledge, to which
there must consequently always be a return. Among real
objects, ideas of perception, on the other hand, the principle
of sufficient reason appears not as the principle of the ground

i8 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

of knowing, but of being, as the law of causality: every real
object has paid its debt to it, inasmuch as it has come to be,
i.e., has appeared as the effect of a cause. The demand for
a ground of knowing has therefore here no application and
no meaning, but belongs to quite another class of things.
Thus the world of perception raises in the observer no ques-
don or doubt so long as he remains in contact with it: there
is here neither error nor truth, for these are confined to the
province ol the abstract — the province of reflection. But
here the world lies open for sense and understanding;
presents itself with naive truth as that which it really is —
ideas of perception which develop themselves according to
the law of causality.

§ 6. For the present, however, in this first book we
consider everything merely as idea, as object for the sub-
ject. And our own body, which is the starting-point for each
v)f us in our perception of the world, we consider, like all
other real objects, from the side of its knowableness, and
in this regard it is simply an idea. Now the consciousness of
every one is in general opposed to the explanation of ob-
jects as mere ideas, and more especially to the explanation
of our bodies as such; for the thing in itself is known to
each of us immediately in so far as it appears as our own
body; but in so far as it objectifies itself in the other
objects of perception, it is known only indirectly. But this
abstraction, this one-sided treatment, this forcible separation
of what is essentially and necessarily united, is only adopted
to meet the demands of our argument; and therefore the
disinclination to it must, in the meantime, be suppressed and
silenced by the expectation that the subsequent treatment
will correct the one-sidedness of the present one, and com-
plete our knowledge of the nature of the world.

At present therefore the body is for us immediate object;
that is to say, that idea which forms the starting-fK)int of the
subject's knowledge; because the body, with its immediately

THE WORLD AS IDEA i^i-

known changes, precedes the application of the law of
causality, and thus supplies it with its first data. The whole
nature of matter consists, as we have seen, in its causa)
action. But cause and effect exist only for the understand-
ing, which is nothing but their subjective correlative. The
understanding, however, could never come into operation
if there were not something else from which it starts. This
is simple sensation — the immediate consciousness of the
changes of the body, by virtue of which it is immediate
object. Thus the possibility of knowing the world of per-
ception depends upon two conditions; the first, objectivelj
expressed, is the power of material things to act upon each
other, to produce changes in each other, without v/hich com-
mon quality of all bodies no perception would be possible,
even by means of the sen'^ibility of the animal body. And
if we wish to express this condition subjectively we say.
The understanding first makes perception possible; for the
law of causality, the possibility of effect and cause, springs
only from the understanding, and is valid only for it, and
therefore the world of perception exists only through and
for it. The second condition i? the sensibility of animal
bodies, or the quality of being immediate objects of the
subject which certain bodies possess. The mere modificatioif
which the organs of sense sustain from without through
their specific affections, may here be called ideas, so far
as these affections produce neither pain nor pleasure, that
is, have no immediate significance for the will, and are yet
perceived, exist therefore only for knowledge. Thus far,
then, I say that the body is immediately knowriy is iniTnediate
object. But the conception of object is not to be taken here
in its fullest sense, for through this immediate knowledge
of the body, which precedes the operation of the understand-
ing, and is mere sensation, our own body does not exist
specifically as object, but first the material things which
affect it: for all knowledge of an object proper, of an idea

20 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

perceived in space, exists only through and for the under-
standing; therefore not before, but only subsequently to its
operation. Therefore the body as object proper, that is, an
idea perceived in space, is first known indirectly, like all other
objects, through the application of the law of causality to
the action of one of its parts upon another, as, for example,
when the eye sees the body or the hand touches it. Conse-
quently the form of our body does not become known to
us through mere feeling, but only through knowledge, only
in idea; that is to say, only in the brain does our own
body first come to appear as extended, articulate, organic.
A man born blind receives this idea only little by little
from the data aflForded by touch. A blind man without
hands could never come to know his own form; or at the
most could infer and construct it little by little from the
effects of other bodies upon him. If, then, we call the body
an immediate object, we are to be understood with these
reservations.

In other respects, then, according to what has been said,
all animal bodies are immediate objects; that is, starting-
points for the subject which always knows and therefore
is never known in its perception of the world. Thus the
distinctive characteristic of animal life is knowledge, with
movement following on motives, which are determined by
knowledge, just as movement following on stimuli is the
distinctive characteristic of plant-life. Unorganised matter,
however, has no movement except such as is produced by
causes properly so called, using the term in its narrowest
sense. All this I have thoroughly discussed in my essay on
the principle of sufficient reason, § 20, in the "Ethics,"
first essay, iii., and in my work on Sight and Colour, § I,
to which I therefore /efer.

It follows from what has been said, that all animals, even
the least developed, have understanding; for they all know
objects, and this knowledge determines their movements

THE WORLD AS IDEA 21

as motive. Understanding is the same in all animals and in
all men; it has everywhere the same simple form; knowl-
edge of causality, transition from effect to cause, and from
cause to effect, nothing more; but the degree of its acute-
ness, and the extension of the sphere of its knowledge varies
enormously, with innumerable gradations from the lowest
form, which is only conscious of the causal connection be-
tween the immediate object and objects affecting it — that is
to say, perceives a cause as an object in space by passing to
it from the affection which the body feels, to the higher
grades of knowledge of the causal connection among objects
known indirectly, which extends to the understanding of the
most complicated system of cause and effect in nature. For
even this high degree of knowledge is still the work of
the understanding, not of the reason. The abstract concepts
of the reason can only serve to take up the objective con-
nections which are immediately known by the understand-
ing, to make them permanent for thought, and to relate
them to each other; but reason never gives us immediate
knowledge. Every force and law of nature, every example
of such forces and laws, must first be immediately known
by the understanding, must be apprehended through per^
ception before it can pass into abstract consciousness for
reason. Hooke's discovery of the law of gravitation, and
the reference of so many important phenomena to this
one law, was the work of immediate apprehension by the un-
derstanding; and such also was the proof of NewtonV
calculations, and Lavoisier's discovery of acids and theii
important function in nature, and also Goethe's discovery
of the origin of physical colours. All these discoveries are
nothing more than a correct immediate passage from the
effect to the cause, which is at once followed by the recogni-
tion of the ideality of the force of nature which expressei.
itself in all causes of the same kind; and this complete in-
sight is just an example of that single function of the

22 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER '

understanding, by which an animal perceives as an object
in space the cause which affects its body, and differs from
such a perception only in degree. Every one of these great-
discoveries is therefore, just like perception, an operation
of the understanding, an immediate intuition, and as such
the work of an instant, an affercuy a flash of insight.

§ 7. With reference to oui' exposition up to this point,
it must be observed that we did not start either from the
object or the subject, but from the idea, which contains and
presupposes them both; for the antithesis of object and sub-
ject is its primary, universal and essential form. We have
therefore first considered this form as such; then (though
in this respect reference has for the most part been made to
the introductory essay) the subordinate forms of time, space
and causality. The latter belong exclusively to the objecty
and yet, as they are essential to the object as such, and as
the object again is essential to the subject as suchy they may
be discovered from the subject, i.e., they may be known
a frioriy and so far they are to be regarded as the common
limits of both. But all these forms may be referred to one
general expression, the principle of sufficient reason, as we
have explained in the introductory essay.

This procedure distinguishes our philosophical method
from that of all former systems. For they all start either
from the object or from the subject, and therefore seek to
explain the one from the other, and this according to the
principle of sufficient reason. We, on the contrary, deny the
validity of this principle with reference to the relation of
subject and object, and confine it to the object. It may be
thought that the philosophy of identity, which has appeared
and berome generally known in our own day, does not come
under either of the alternatives we have named, for it does
not start either from the subject or from the object, but
from the absolute, known through "intellectual intuition,"
which is neither object nor subject, but the identity of the

THE WORLD AS IDEA 23

two. I will not venture to speak of this revered identity, and
this absolute, for I find myself entirely devoid of all "in-
tellectual intuition." But as I take my stand merely on those
manifestoes of the "intellectual intuiter" which are open to
all, even to profane persons like myself, I must yet observe
that this philosophy is not to be excepted from the alternativi
errors mentioned above. For it does not escape these two
opposite errors in spite of its identity of subject and object,
which is not thinkable, but only "intellectually intuitable,"
or to be experienced by a losing of oneself in it. On the
contrary, it combines them both in itself; for it is divided
into two parts, firstly, transcendental idealism, which is just
Fichte's doctrine of the egOy and therefore teaches that the
object is produced by the subject, or evolved out of it in
accordance with the principle of sufficient reason; secondly,
the philosophy of nature, which teaches that the subject is
produced little by little from the object, by means of a
method called construction, about which I understand very
little, yet enough to know that it is a process according to
various forms of the principle of sufficient reason. The deep
wisdom itself which that construction contains, I renounce;
for as I entirely lack "intellectual intuition," all those
expositions which presuppose it must for me remain as a book
sealed with seven seals. This is so truly the case that, strange
to say, I have always been unable to find anything at all in
this doctrine of profound wisdom but atrocious and weari-
some bombast.

The systems starting from the object had always the
whole world of perception and its constitution as their prob-
lem; yet the object which they take as their starting-point
is not always this whole world of perception, nor its funda-
mental element, matter. On the contrary, a division of these
systems may be made, based on the four classes of possible
objects set forth in the introductory essay. Thus Thales and
the Ionic school, Democritus, Epicurus, Giordano Bruno,

24 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

and the French materialists, may be said to have started from
the first class of objects, the real world: Spinoza (on account
of his conception of substance, which is purely abstract, and
exists only in his definition) and, earlier, the Eleatics, from
the second class, the abstract conception: the Pythagoreans
and Chinese philosophy in Y-King, from the third class,
time, and consequently number: and, lastly, the schoolmen,
who teach a creation out of nothing by the act of will of an
extra-mundane personal being, started from the fourth class
of objects, the act of will directed by knowledge.

Of all systems of philosophy which start from the object,
the most consistent, and that which may be carried furthest,
is simple materialism. It regards matter, and with it time and
space, as existing absolutely, and ignores the relation to the
subject in which alone all this really exists. It then lays hold
of the law of causality as a guiding principle or clue, regard-
ing it as a self-existent order (or arrangement) of things,
Veritas ceternay and so fails to take account of the under-
standing, in which and for which alone causality is. It seeks
the primary and most simple state of matter, and then tries
to develop all the others from it; ascending from mere
mechanism, to chemism, to polarity, to the vegetable and
to the animal kingdom. And if we suppose this to have been
done, the last link in the chain would be animal sensibility —
that is, knowledge — which would consequently now appear
as a mere modification or state of matter produced by
causality. Now if we had followed materialism thus far
with clear ?deas, when we reached its highest point we would
suddenly be seized with a fit of the inextinguishable laughter
of the Olympians. As if wakmg from a dream, we would
all at once become aware that its final result — knowledge,
which it reached so laboriously, was presupposed as the in-
dispensable condition of its very starting-point, mere mat-
ter; and when we imagined that we thought matter, we
really thought only the subject that perceives matter: the

THE WORLD AS IDEA 25

eye that sees it, the hand that feels it, the understanding that
knov/s it. Thus the tremendous fetitio frinci-pii reveals itself
unexpectedly; for suddenly the last link is seen to be the
starting-point, the chain a circle, and the materialist is like
Baron Munchausen who, when swimming in water on
horseback, drew the horse into the air with his legs, and
himself also by his cue. The fundamental absurdity of
materialism, is that it starts from the objectivey and takes as
th^_ ^ultimate ground of explanation something objective^
whether it be matter in the abstract, simply as it is thought^
or after it has taken form, is empirically given — that is to
say, is substance^ the chemical element with its primary rela-
tions. Some such thing it takes, as existing absolutely and
in itself, in order that it may evolve organic nature and
finally the knowing subject from it, and explain them ade-
quately by means of it; whereas in truth all that is objective
is already determined as such in manifold ways by the know-
ing subject through its forms of knowing, and presupposes
them; and consequently it entirely disappears if we think
the subject away. Thus materialism is the attempt to explain
what is immediately given us by what is given us indirectly.
All that is objective, extended, active — that is to say, all that
( is material — is regarded by materialism as affording so solid
' a basis for its explanation, that a reduction of everything to
j this can leave nothing to be desired (especially if in ultimate
5 analysis this reduction should resolve itself into action and
reaction). But we have shown that all this is given indirectly
and in the highest degree determined, and is therefore merely
a relatively present object, for it has passed through the
^ machinery and manufactory of the brain, and has thus come
Q under the forms of space, time and causality, by means of
^ which it is first presented to us as extended in space and
ever active in time. From such an indirectly given object,
0 materialism seeks to explain what is immediately given, the
idea {\n which alone the object that ij\^terialism starts with
0

.26 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

exists), and finally even the will from which all those
fundamental forces, that manifest themselves, under the
guidance of causes, and therefore according to law, are in
truth to be explained. To the assertion that thought is a
/^modification of matter we may always, with equal right,
oppose the contrary assertion that all matter is merely the
modification of the knowing subject, as its idea. Yet the
aim and ideal of all natural science is at bottom a consistent
materialism. The recognition here of the obvious impossi-
bility of such a system establishes another truth which will
appear in the course of our exposition, the truth that all
science properly so called, by which I understand systematic
knowledge under the guidance of the principle of sufficient
reason, can never reach its final goal, nor give a complete
and adequate explanation: for it is not concerned with the
inmost nature of the world, it cannot get; beyond the idea;
indeed, it really teaches nothing more than the relation of
one idea to another.

"No object without a subject," is the principle which
renders all materialism for ever impossible. Suns and planets
without an eye that sees them, and an understanding that
knows them, may indeed be spoken of in words, but for the
idea, these words are absolutely meaningless. On the other
hand, the law of causality and the treatment and investiga-
tion of nature which is based upon it, lead us necessarily to
the conclusion that, in time, each more highly organised state
of matter has succeeded a cruder state: so that the lower
animals existed before men, fishes before land animals^
plants before fishes, and the unorganised before all that is
organised; that, consequently, the original mass had to pass
through a long series of changes before the first eye could
be opened. And yet, the existence of this whole world re-
mains ever dependent upon the first eye that opened, even if
\t were that of an insect. For such an eye is a necessary
condition of the possibility of knowledge, and the whole

THE WORLD AS IDEA 27

world exists only in and for knowledge, and without it is
not even thinkable. The world is entirely idea, and as such
demands the knowing subject as the supporter of its existence
This long course of time itself, filled with innumerabU
changes, through which matter rose from form to form till
at last the first percipient creature appeared, — this whole
time itself is only thinkable in the identity of a consciousness
whose succession of ideas, whose form of knowing it is, and
apart from which, it loses all meaning and is nothing at all.
Thus we see, on the one hand, the existence of the whole
world necessarily dependent upon the first conscious being,
however undeveloped it may be; on the other hand, this con-
scious being just as necessarily entirely dependent upon a
long cha'n of causes and effects which have preceded it, and
in which it itself appears as a small link. These two contra-
dictory points of view, to each of which we are led with
the same necessity, we might again call an antinomy in out
faculty of knowledge, and set it up as the counterpart of
that which we found in the first extreme of natural science.
The objective world, the world as idea, is not the only side
of the world, but merely its outward side; and it has an
entirely different side — the side of its inmost nature — its r. ^ ,-^^s
kernel — the thing-in-itself. This we shall consider in the [iniiL
second book, calling it after the most immediate of its
objective manifestations — ^will. But the world as idea, with
v/hich alone we are here concerned, only appears with the
opening of the first eye. Without this medium of knowledge
it cannot be, and therefore it was not before it. But without
that eye, that is to say, outside of knowledge, there was also
no before, no time. Thus time has no beginning, but all
beginning is in time. Since, however, it is the most universal
form of the knowable, in which all phenomena are united
together through causality, time, with its infinity of past and
future, is present in the beginning of knowledge. The
phenomenon which fills the first present must at once bt

28 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

known as causally bound up with and dependent upon a
sequence of phenomena which stretches infinitely into the
past, and this past itself is just as truly conditioned by this
first present, as conversely the present is by the past. Accord-
ingly the past out of which the first present arises, is, like it,
dependent upon the knowing subject, without which it is
nothing. It necessarily happens, however, that this first pres-
ent does not manifest itself as the first, that is, as having no
past for its parent, but as being the beginning of time. It
manifests itself rather as the consequence of the past, ac-
cording to the principle of existence in time. In the same
way, the phenomena which fill this first present appear as
the eflpects of earlier phenomena which filled the past, in
accordance with the law of causality. Those who like
mythological interpretations may take the birth of Kronos
(;i^^ovog), the youngest of the Titans, as a symbol of the
moment here referred to at which time appears, though
indeed it has no beginning; for with him, since he ate his
father, the crude productions of heaven and earth cease,
and the races of gods and men appear upon the scene.

This explanation at which we have arrived by following
the most consistent of the philosophical systems which start
from the object, materialism, has brought out clearly the
inseparable and reciprocal dependence of subject and object,
and at the same time the inevitable antithesis between them.
And this knowledge leads us to seek for the inner nature
of the world, the thing-in-itself, not in either of the two
elements of the idea, but in something quite distinct from
it, and which is not encumbered with such a fundamental
and insoluble antithesis.

Opposed to the system we have explained, which starts
from the object in order to derive the subject from it, is the
system which starts from the subject and tries to derive the
object from it. The first of these has been of frequent
and common occurrence throughout the history of philoso-

THE WORLD AS IDEA 29

phy, but of the second we find only one example, and that
a very recent one; the "philosophy of appearance" of J. G.
Fichte. In this respect, therefore, it must be considered;
little real worth or inner meaning as the doctrine itself had.
It was indeed for the most part merely a delusion, but it
was delivered with an air of the deepest earnestness, with
sustained loftiness of tone and zealous ardour, and was de-
fended with eloquent polemic against weak opponents, so
that it was able to present a brilliant exterior and seemed
to be something. But the genuine earnestness which keeps
truth always steadfastly before it as its goal, and is un-
affected by any external influences, was entirely wanting to
Fichte, as it is to all philosophers who, like him, concern
themselves with questions of the day. In his case, indeed, it
could not have been otherwise. A man becomes a philosopher
by reason of a certain perplexity, from which he seeks to
free himself. This is Plato's '^avfxa^siv^ which he calls a
^laXa ^dooo0ixov nadog. But what distinguishes the false
philosopher from the true is this: the perplexity of the latter
arises from the contemplation of the world itself, while
that of the former results from some book, some system of
philosophy which is before him. Now Fichte belongs to the
class of the false philosophers. He was made a philosopher
by Kant's doctrine of the thing-in-itself, and if it had not
been for this he would probably have pursued entirely dif-
ferent ends, with far better results, for he certainly pos-
sessed remarkable rhetorical talent. If he had only penetrated
somewhat deeply into the meaning of the book that made
him a philosopher, "The Critique of Pure Reason," he
would have understood that its principal teaching about mind
is this. The principle of sufficient reason is not, as all scholas-
tic philosophy maintains, a Veritas externa — that is to say, it
does not possess an unconditioned validity before, outside of,
and above the world. It is relative and conditioned, and valid

30 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

only in the sphere of phenomena, and thus it may appear as
the necessary nexus of space and time, or as the law of
causality, or as the law of the ground of knowledge. The
inner nature of the world, the thing-in-itself can never be
found by the guidance of this principle, for all that it leads
to will be found to be dependent and relative and merely
phenomenal, not the thing-in-itself. Further, it does not con-
cern the subject, but is only the form of objects, which are
therefore not things-in-themselves. The subject must exist
along with the object, and the object along with the subject,
so that it is impossible that subject and object can stand to
each other in a relation of reason and consequent. But Fichte
did not take up the smallest fragment of all this. All that
interested him about the matter was that the system started
from the subject. Now Kant had chosen this procedure in
order to show the fallacy of the prevalent systems, which
started from the object, and through which the object had
come to be regarded as a thing-in-itself. Fichte, however,
took this departure from the subject for the really important
matter, and like all imitators, he imagined that in goingi
further than Kant he was surpassing him. This philosophy
of Fichte, otherwise not worth mentioning, is interesting to
us only as the tardy expression of the converse of the old,
materialism. For materialism was the most consistent system
starting from the object, as this is the most consistent system
starting from the subject. Materialism overlooked the fact
that, with the simplest object, it assumed the subject also;
and Fichte overlooked the fact that with the subject (what-
ever he may call it) he assumed the object also, for no sub-
ject is thinkable without an object. Besides this he forgot
that all a friori deduction, indeed all demonstration in gen-
eral, must rest upon some necessity, and that all necessity is
based on the principle of sufficient reason, because to be
necessary, and to follow from given grounds are con-

THE WORLD AS IDEA 31

vertible conceptions/ But the principle of sufficient reason
is just the universal form of the object as such. Thus it is in
the object, but is not valid before and outside of it; it first
produces the object and makes it appear in conformity with
its regulative principle. We see then that the system which
starts from the subject contains the same fallacy as the sys-
tem, explained above, which starts from the object; it begins
by assuming what it proposes to deduce, the necessary cor-
relative of its starting-point.

The method of our own system is toto genere distinct
from these two opposite misconceptions, for we start neither
from the object nor from the subject, but from the ideay a3
the first fact of consciousness. Its first essential, fundamental
form, is the antithesis of subject and object. The form of the
object again is the principle of sufilicient reason in itb various
forms. Each of these reigns so absolutely in its own class of
ideas that, as we have seen, when the special form of the
principle of sufficient reason which governs any class of
ideas is known, the nature of the whole class is known also:
for the whole class, as idea, is no more than this form of
the principle of sufficient reason itself; so that time itself
is nothing but the principle of existence in it, t.e.y succession ;
space is nothing but the principle of existence in it, i.e.y
position; matter is nothing but causality; the concept (as
will appear immediately) is nothing but relation to a ground
of knowledge. This thorough and consistent relativity of the
world as idea, both according to its universal form (subject
and object) and according to the form which is subordinate
to this (the principle of sufficient reason) warns us, as w&
said before, to seek the inner nature of the world in an
aspect of it which is quite di^ event and quite distinct from
the idea; and in the next book we shall find this in a fact
which is just as immediate to every living being as the idea.

1 On this see "The Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient
Reason," § 49.

32 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

But we must first consider that class of ideas which be-
longs to man alone. The matter of these is the concept, and
*he subjective correlative is reason, just as the subjective
correlative of the ideas we have already considered was
understanding and sensibility, which are also to be attributed
to all the lower animals/

§ 8. As from the direct light of the sun to the borrowed
light of the moon, we pass from the immediate idea of
perception, which stands by itself and is its own warrant,
to reflection, to the abstract, discursive concepts of the reason,
which obtain their whole content from knowledge of per-
ception, and in relation to it. As long as we continue simply
to perceive, all is clear, firm, and certain. There are neither
questions nor doubts nor errors; we desire to go no further,
can go no further; we find rest in perceiving, and satisf^-
tion in the present. Perception suffices for itself, and there-
fore what springs purely from it, and remains true to it,
for example, a genuine work of art, can never be false, nor
tan it be discredited through the lapse of time, for it does
not present an opinion but the thing itself. But with abstract
knowledge, with reason, doubt and error appear in the
theoretical, care and sorrow in the practical. In the idea of
perception, illusion may at moments take the place of the
real; but in the sphere of abstract thought, error may reign
for a thousand years, impose its yoke upon whole nations,
extend to the noblest impulses of humanity, and, by the
help of its slaves and its dupes, may chain and fetter those
whom it cannot deceive. It is the enemy against which the
wisest men of all times have waged unequal war, and only
what they have won from it has become the possession of
mankind. Therefore it is well to draw attention to it at
once, as we already tread the ground to which its province
belongs. It has often been said that we ought to follow truth

^ The first four chapters of the first of the supplementary books
belong to these seven paragraphs.

THE WORLD AS IDEA 33

even although no utility can be seen in it, because it may
have indirect utility which may appear v^^hen it is least ex-
pected; and I would add to this, that we ought to be just
as anxious to discover and to root out all error even when
no harm is anticipated from it, because its mischief may be
very indirect, and may suddenly appear when we do not
^pect it, for all error has poison at its heart. If it is mind,
if it is knowledge, that makes man the lord of creation,
there can be no such thing as harmless error, still less
venerable and holy error. And for the consolation of those
who in any way and at any time may have devoted strength
and life to the noble and hard battle against error, I cannot
refrain from adding that, so long as truth is absent, error
will have free play, as owls and bats in the night ; but sooner
would we expect to see the owls and the bats drive back the
sun in the eastern heavens, than that any truth which has
once been known and distinctly and fully expressed, can
ever again be so utterly vanquished and overcome that the
old error shall once more reign undisturbed over its wide
kingdom. This is the power of truth; its conquest is slow
and laborious, but if once the victory be gained it can never
be wrested back again.

Besides the ideas we have as yet considered, which, accord-
ing to their construction, could be referred to time, space,
and matter, if we consider them with reference to the
object, or to pure sensibility and understanding {i.e., knowl-
edge of causality), if we consider them with reference to the
subject, another faculty of knowledge has appeared in man
alone of all earthly creatures, an entirely new consciousness,
which, with very appropriate and significant exactness, is
called reflection. For it is in fact derived from the knowl-
edge of perception, and is a reflected appearance of it. But
it has assumed a nature fundamentally different. The forms
of perception do not affect it, and even the principle of
sufficient reason which reigns over all objects has an entirely

34 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

different aspect with regard to it. It is just this new, more
highly endowed, consciousness, this abstract reflex of all that
belongs to perception in that conception of the reason which
has nothing to do with perception, that gives to man that
thoughtfulness which distinguishes his consciousness so en-
tirely from that of the lower animals, and through which
his whole behaviour upon earth is so different from that of
his irrational fellow-creatures. He far surpasses them in
power and also in suffering. They live in the present alone,
he lives also in the future and the past. They satisfy the
needs of the moment, he provides by the most ingenious
preparations for the future, yea for days that he shall never
see. They are entirely dependent on the impression of the
moment, on the effect of the perceptible motive; he is deter-
mined by abstract conceptions independent of the present.
Therefore he follows predetermined plans, he acts from
maxims, without reference to his surroundings or the acci-
dental impression of the moment. Thus, for example, he
can make with composure deliberate preparations for his own
death, he can dissemble past finding out, and can carry his
secret with him to the grave; lastly, he has an actual choice
between several motives; for only in the abstract can such
motives, present together in consciousness, afford the knowl-
edge with regard to themselves, that the one excludes the
other, and can thus measure themselves against each other
with reference to their power over the will. The motive
that overcomes, in that it decides the question at issue, is
the deliberate determinant of the will, and is a sure indica-
tion of its character. The brute, on the other hand, is de-
termined by the present impression; only the fear of present
compulsion can constrain its desires, until at last this fear
has become custom, and as such continues to determine it;
this is called training. The brute feels and perceives; man,
in addition to this, thinks and knows: both will. The brute
expresses its feelings and dispositions by gestures and sounds;

THE WORLD AS IDEA 35

man communicates his thought to others, or, if he wishes^
he conceals it, by means of speech. Speech is the first pro-
duction, and also the necessary organ of his reason. There-
fore in Greek and Italian, speech and reason are expressed
by the same word; 6 Xoyog^ U discorso. Vernunft is derived
from vernehmcny which not a synonym for the verb
to hear, but signifies the consciousness of the meaning of
thoughts communicated in words. It is by the help of
language alone that reason accomplishes its most important
achievements, — the united action of several individuals, the
planned co-operation of many thousands, civilisation, the
state; also science, the storing up of experience, the uniting
of common properties in one concept, the communication of
truth, the spread of error, thoughts and poems, dogmas and
superstitions. The brute first knows death when it dies, buf,
man draws consciously nearer to it every hour that he lives j
and this makes life at times a questionable good even to him
who has not recognised this character of constant annihila-
tion in the whole of life. P/incipally on this account man
has philosophies and religions, though it is uncertain whether
the qualities we admire most in his conduct, voluntary recti-
tude and nobility of feeling, were ever the fruit of either of
them. As results which certainly belong only to them, and
as productions of reason in this sphere, we may refer to the
marvellous and monstrous opinions of philosophers of vari-
ous schools, and the extraordinary and sometimes cruel cus*
toms of the priests of different religions.

It is the universal opinion of all times and of all nationi
that these manifold and far-reaching achievements spring
from a common principle, from that peculiar intellectual
power which belongs distinctively to man and which has
been called reason,© loyoq^io loyioxiKOV^ xo Xoyi/nov, ratio.
Besides this, no one finds any difficulty in recognising the
manifestations of this faculty, and in saying what is rational
and what is irrational, where reason appears as distinguished

36 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

from the other faculties and qualities of man, or lastly, in
pointing out what, on account of the want of reason, we
must never expect even from the most sensible brute. The
philosophers of all ages may be said to be on the whole at
one about this general knowledge of reason, and they have
also given prominence to several very important manifesta-
tions of it; such as, the control of the emotions and pas-
sions, the capacity for drawing conclusions and formulating
general principles, even such as are true prior to all ex-
perience, and so forth.

The understanding has only one function — immediate
knowledge of the relation of cause and effect. Yet the per-
ception of the real world, and all common sense, sagacity,
and inventiveness, however multifarious their applications
may be, are quite clearly seen to be nothing more than mani-
festations of that one function. So also the reason has one
function; and from it all the manifestations of reason we
have mentioned, which distinguish the life of man from
that of the brutes, may easily be explained. The application
or the non-application of this function is all that is meant
by what men have everywhere and always called rational
and irrational.^

Although concepts are fundamentally different from
ideas of perception, they stand in a necessary relation to
them, without which they would be nothing. This relation
therefore constitutes the whole nature and existence of con-
cepts. Reflection is the necessary copy or repetition of the
originally presented world of perception, but it is a special
kind of copy in an entirely different material. Thus con-
cepts may quite properly be called ideas of ideas. The prin-
ciple of sufficient reason has here also a special form. Now
we have seen that the form under which the principle of
sufficient reason appears in a class of ideas always constitutes

1 Compare with this paragraph §§ 26 and 27 of the third edition
^i the essay on the principle of sufficient reason.

THE WORLD AS IDEA 37

and exhausts the whole nature of the class, so far as it con- ,
sists of ideas, so that time is throughout succession, and
nothing more; space is throughout position, and nothing
more; matter is throughout causation, and nothing more.
In the same way the whole nature of concepts, or the clas^
of abstract ideas, consists simply in the relation which thi
principle of sufficient reason expresses in them; and as this
is the relation to the ground of knowledge, the whole nature
of the abstract idea is simply and solely its relation to anothei
idea, which is its ground of knowledge. This, indeed, may,
in the first instance, be a concept, an abstract idea, and this
again may have only a similar abstract ground of knowl-
edge; but the chain of grounds of knowledge does not ex-
tend ad infinitum I it must end at last in a concept which has
its ground in knowledge of perception; for the whole world
of reflection rests on the world of perception as its ground
of knowledge. Hence the class of abstract ideas is in this
respect distinguished from other classes; in the latter the
principle of sufficient reason always demands merely a rela-
tion to another idea of the same class, but in the case of
abstract ideas, it at last demands a relation to an idea of
another class.

Those concepts which, as has just been pointed out, are
not immediately related to the world of perception, but only
through the medium of one, or it may be several other con-
cepts, have been called by preference abstracta, and those
which have their ground immediately in the world of per-
ception have been called concreta. But this last name is only
loosely applicable to the concepts denoted by it, for they are
always merely ahstracta^ and not ideas of perception. These
names, which have originated in a very dim consciousness of
the distinctions they imply, may yet, with this explanation,
be retained. As examples of the first kind of concepts, i.e.y
abstracta in the fullest sense, we may take "relation," "vir-
tue," "investigation," "beginning," and so on. As examples

38 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

of the second kind, loosely called concretay we may take such
concepts as "man," "stone," "horse," &c. If it were not a
somewhat too pictorial and therefore absurd simile, we might
very appropriately call the latter the ground floor, and the
former the upper stories of the building of reflection.^

Reason is feminine in nature; it can only give after it
has received. Of itself it has nothing but the empty forms of
Its operation. There is no absolutely pure rational knowledge
except the four principles to which I have attributed meta-
logical truth; the principles of identity, contradiction, ex-
cluded middle, and sufllicient reason of knowledge. For even
the rest of logic is not absolutely pure rational knowledge.
It presupposes the relations and the combinations of the
spheres of concepts. But concepts in general only exist after
experience of ideas of perception, and as their whole nature
consists in their relation to these, it is clear that they pre-
suppose them. No special content, however, is presupposed,
but merely the existence of a content generally, and so logic
as a whole may fairly pass for pure rational science. In all
other sciences reason has received its content from ideas of
perception; in mathematics from the relations of space and
time, presented in intuition or perception prior to all ex-
perience; in pure natural science, that is, in what we know
of the course of nature prior to any experience, the content
of the science proceeds from the pure understanding, ue,y
from the a 'priori knowledge of the law of causality and its
connection with those pure intuitions or perceptions of space
and time. In all other sciences everything that is not derived
from the sources we have just referred to belongs to ex-
perience. Speaking generally, to know rationally (wissen)
means to have in the power of the mind, and capable of
being reproduced at will, such judgments as have their suf-
ficient ground of knowledge in something outside them-
selves, i.e., are true. Thus only abstract cognition is rational
1 Cf. Ch. 5 and 6 oi the Supplement.

THE WORLD AS IDEA 39

knowledge (^wissen), which is therefore the result of reason,
so that we cannot accurately say of the lower animals that
they rationally know (wissen) anything, although they have
apprehension of what is presented in perception, and memory
of this, and consequently imagination, which is furthei
proved by the circumstance that they dream. We attribute
consciousness to them, and therefore although the word
{bewusstsein) is derived from the verb to know rationally
(wissen) J the conception of consciousness corresponds gen-
erally with that of idea of whatever kind it may be. Thu?
we attribute life to plants, but not consciousness. Rational
knowledge (wissen) is therefore abstract consciousness, the
permanent possession in concepts of the reason, of what has
become known in another way.

§ 12. Rational knowledge (wissen) is then all abstract
knowledge, — that is, the knowledge which is peculiar tc
the reason as distinguished from the understanding. Now,,
as reason only reproduces, for knowledge, what has been
received in another way, it does not actually extend our
knowledge, but only gives it another form. It enables us to
know in the abstract and generally, what first became
known in sense-perception, in the concrete. But this i?
much more important than it appears at first sight when so
expressed. For it depends entirely upon the fact that knowl-
edge has become rational or abstract knowledge (wissen) ,
that it can be safely preserved, that it is communicable and
susceptible of certain and wide-reaching application to
practice. Knowledge in the form of sense-perception is
valid only of the particular case, extends only to what is
nearest, and ends with it, for sensibility and understanding
can only comprehend one object at a time. Every enduring,
arranged, and planned activity must therefore proceed from
principles, — that is, from abstract knowledge, and it must
be conducted in accordance with them. Thus, for example,
the knowledge of the relation of cause and efiFect arrived

40 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

at by the understanding, is in itself far completer, deeper
and more exhaustive than anything that can be thought
about it in the abstract; the understanding alone knows in
perception directly and completely the nature of the effect
of a lever, of a pulley, or a cog-wheel, the stability of an
Arch, and so forth. But on account of the peculiarity of the
knowledge of perception just referred to, that it only
extends to what is immediately present, the mere under-
standing can never enable us to construct machines and
buildings. Here reason must come in; it must substitute
abstract concepts for ideas of perceptiori, and take them
as the guide of action; and if they are right, the anticipated
result will happen. In the same way we have perfect knowl-
edge in pure perception of the nature and constitution of
the parabola, hyperbola, and spiral; but if we are to make
trustworthy application of this knowledge to the real, it
must first become abstract knowledge, and by this it cer-
tainly loses its character of intuition or perception, but on
the other hand it gains the certainty and preciseness of
abstract knowledge. The differential calculus does not
really extend our knowledge of the curve, it contains noth-
ing that was not already in the mere pure perception of the
curve; but it alters the kind of knowledge, it changes the
intuitive into an abstract knowledge, which is so valuable
for application.

This quality of concepts by which they resemble the
fltones of a mosaic, and on account of which perception
always remains their asymptote, is the reason why nothing
good is produced in art by their means. If the singer or the
virtuoso attem.pts to guide his execution by reflection he
remains silent. And this is equally true of the composer,
the painter, and the poet. The concept always remains un-
fruitful in art; it can only direct the technical part of it,
its sphere is science. We shall consider more fully in the
third book, why all true art proceeds from sensuous knowl-

THE WORLD AS IDEA 41

edge, never from the concept. Indeed, with regard to be-
haviour also, and personal agreeableness in society, the
concept has only a negative value in restraining the grosser
manifestations of egotism and brutality; so that a polished
manner is its commendable production. But all that is at-
tractive, gracious, charming in behaviour, all affectionate-
ness and friendliness, must not proceed from the concepts,
for if it does, "we feel intention, and are put out of tune."
All dissimulation is the work of reflection; but it cannot
be maintained constantly and without interruption: ^^nemo
fotest personam diu ferre fictuniy* says Seneca in his book
de dementia; and so it is generally found out and loses
its effect. Reason is needed in the full stress of life, where
quick conclusions, bold action, rapid and sure comprehension
are required, but it may easily spoil all if it gains the upper
hand, and by perplexing hinders the intuitive, direct dis-
covery, and grasp of the right by simple understanding, and
thus induces irresolution.

Lastly, virtue and holiness do not proceed from reflection,
but from the inner depths of the will, and its relation to
knowledge. The exposition of this belongs to another part
of our work; this, however, I may remark here, that the
dogmas relating to ethics may be the same in the reason of
whole nations, but the action of every individual diflFerent;
and the converse also holds good; action, we say, is guided
by feelingSy — that is, simply not by concepts, but as a matter
of fact by the ethical character. Dogmas occupy the idla
reason; but action in the end pursues its own course inde-
pendently of them, generally not according to abstract
rules, but according to unspoken maxims, the expression of
which is the whole man himself. Therefore, however dif-»
ferent the religious dogmas of nations may be, yet in thj
case of all of them, a good action is accompanied by un--
speakable satisfaction, and a bad action by endless remorse.
No mocker/ can shake the former; no priest's absolution caf

42 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

deliver from the latter. Notwithstanding this, we must
allow, that for the pursuit of a virtuous life, the application
of reason is needful; only it is not its source, but has the
subordinate function of preserving resolutions which have
been made, of providing maxims to v/ithstand the weakness
of the moment, and give consistency to action. It plavs the
same part ultimately in art also, where it has just as little
to do with the essential matter, but assists in carrying it out,
for gonius is not always at call, and yet the work must be
completed in all its parts and rounded off to a whole/

As regards the content of the sciences generally, it is,
in fact, always the relation of the phenomena of the world
to each other, according to the principle of sufficient reason,
under the guidance of the wAy, which has validity and
meaning only through this principle. Exflanation is the
establishment of this relation. Therefore explanation can
never go further than to show two ideas standing to each
other in the relation peculiar to that form of the principle
of sufficient reason which reigns in the class to which they
belong. If this is done we cannot further be asked the
question, why: for the relation proved is that one which
absolutely cannot be imagined as other than it is, i.e,y it is
the form of all knowledge. Therefore we do not ask why
2 + 2 = 4; or why the equality of the angles of a triangle
determines the equality of the sides; or why its effect fol-
lows any given cause; or why the truth of the con=
elusion is evident from the truth of the premises. Every
explanation which does not ultimately lead to a re-
lation of which no "why" can further be demanded, stops
at an accepted qualttas occulta; but this is the character
of every original force of nature. Every explanation in
natural science must ultimately end with such a qualttas
occulta, and thus with complete obscurity. It must leave
the inner nature of a stone just as much unexplained as that

1 Cf. Ch. 7 of the Supplement.

THE WORLD AS IDEA 43

of a human being; it can give as little account of the
weight, the cohesion, the chemical qualities, &c., of the
former, as of the knowing and acting of the latter. Thus,
for example, weight is a qualitas occultay for it can be
thought away, and does not proceed as a necessity from the
form of knowledge; which, on the contrary, is not the case
with the law of inertia, for it follows from the law of
causality, and is therefore sufficiently explained if it is
referred to that law. There are two things which are alto-
gether inexplicable, — that is to say, do not ultimately lead
to the relation which the principle of sufficient reason ex-
presses. These are, first, the principle of sufficient reason
itself in all its four forms, because it is the principle of all
explanation, which has meaning only in relation to it;
secondly, that to which this principle does not extend, but
which is the original source of all phenomena; the thing-in-
itself, the knowledge of which is not subject to the principle
of sufficient reason. We must be content for the present not
to understand this thing-in-itself, for it can only be made
intelligible by means of the following book, in which we
shall resume this consideration of the possible achievements
of the sciences. But at the point at which natural science,
and indeed every science, leaves things, because not only its
explanation of them, but even the principle of this explana-
tion, the principle of sufficient reason, does not extend be-
yond this point; there philosophy takes them up and treats
them after its own method, which is quite distinct from the
method of science. In my essay on the principle of sufficient
reason, § 51, I have shown how in the different sciences
the chief guiding clue is one or other form of that principle;
and, in fact, perhaps the most appropriate classification of
the sciences might be based upon this circumstance. Every
explanation arrived at by the help of this clue is, as we
have said, merely relative; it explains things in relation to
each other, but something which indeed is presupposed is

44 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

always left unexplained. In mathematics, for example, this
is space and ^ime; in mechanics, physics, and chemistry it
is matter, qualities, original forces and laws of nature;
in botany 'ind zoology it is the difference of species, and
life itself; in history it is the human race with all its prop-
erties of thought and will: in all it is that form of the
principle of sufficient reason which is respectively applicable.
It is peculiar to fhllosofhy that it presupposes nothing as
known, but treats everything as equally external and a
problem; not merely the relations of phenomena, but also
the phenomena themselves, and even the principle of suffi-
cient reason to which the other sciences are content to refer
everything. In philosophy nothing would be gained by such
a reference, as one member of the series is just as external
to it as another; and, moreover, that kind of connection is
just as much a problem for philosophy as what is joined
together oy it, and the latter again is just as much a problem
after its combination has been explained as before it. For,
as we have said, just what the sciences presuppose and lay
down as the basis and the limits of their explanation, is pre-
cisely and peculiarly the problem of philosophy, which may
therefore be said to begin where science ends. It cannot
be founded upon demonstrations, for they lead from known
principles to unknown, but everything is equally unknown
and external to philosophy. There can be no principle in
consequence of which the world with all its phenomena
first came into existence, and therefore it is not possible to
construct, as Spinoza wished, a philosophy which demon-
strates ex firmis frincifiis. Philosophy is the most general
rational knowledge, the first principles of which cannot
therefore be derived from another principle still more
general. The principle of contradiction establishes merely
the agreement of concepts, but does not itself produce con-
cepts. The principle of sufficient reason explains the connec-
t^XiS of phenomena, but not the phenomena themselves;

THE WORLD AS IDEA 45

therefore philosophy cannot proceed upon these principles
to seek a causa efficiens or a causa finalis of the whole world.
My philosophy, at least, does not by any means seek to
know whence or wherefore the world exists, but merely
what the world is. But the why is here subordinated to the
whaty for it already belongs to the world, as it arises and
has meaning and validity only through the form of its
phenomena, the principle of sufficient reason. We might
indeed say that every one knows what the world is without
help, for he is himself that subject of knowledge of which
the world is the idea; and so far this would be true. But
that knowledge is empirical, is in the concrete; the task of
philosophy is to reproduce this in the abstract, to raise to
permanent rational knowledge the successive changing per-
ceptions, and in general, all that is contained under the
wide concept of feeling and merely negatively defined as
not abstract, distinct, rational knowledge. It must therefore
consist of a statement in the abstract, of the nature of the
whole world, of the whole, and of all the parts. In order
then that it may not lose itself in the endless multitude of
particular judgments, it must make use of abstraction and
think everything individual in the universal, and its dif-
ferences also in the universal. It must therefore partly
separate and partly unite, in order to present to rational
knowledge the whole manifold of the world generally,
according to its nature, comprehended in a few abstract
concepts. Through these concepts, in which it fixes the
nature of the world, the whole individual must be known
as well as the universal, the knowledge of both therefore
must be bound together to the minutest point. Therefore
the capacity for philosophy consists just in that in which
Plato placed it, the knowledge of the one in the many, and
the many in the one. Philosophy will therefore be a sum
total of general judgments, whose ground of knowledge
is immediately the world itself in its entirety, without ex*

f6 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

;epting anything; thus all that is to be found in human
consciousness; it will be a complete recafitulatioriy as it
were, a rejlectiony of the world in abstract cone efts y which
is only possible by the union of the essentially identical in
one concept and the relegation of the different to another.

The agreement which all the sides and parts of the
world have with each other, just because they belong to a
whole, must also be found in this abstract copy of it.
Therefore the judgments in this sum-total could to a certain
extent be deduced from each other, and indeed always
reciprocally so deduced. Yet to make the first judgment
possible, they must all be present, and thus implied as prior
to it in the knowledge of the world in the concrete, espe-
cially as all direct proof is more certain than indirect proof;
their harmony with each other by virtue of which they
come together into the unity of one thought, and which
arises from the harmony and unity of the world of percep-
tion itself, which is their common ground of knowledge,
is not therefore to be made use of to establish them, as that
which is prior to them, but is only added as a confirmation
of their truth. This problem itself can only become quite
clear in being solved.^

The many-sided view' of life as a whole which man, as
distinguished from the lower animals, possesses through
reason, may be compared to a geometrical, colourless,
abstract, reduced plan of his actual life. He, therefore,
stands to the lower animals as the navigator who, by means
\)f chart, compass, and quadrant, knows accurately his
course and his position at any time upon the sea, stands to
the uneducated sailors who see only the waves and the
heavens. Thus it is worth noticing, and indeed wonderful,
how, besides his life in the concrete, man always lives
another life in the abstract. In the former he is given as a
prey to all the storms of actual life, and to the influence of
\ 1 Cf. Ch. 7 of Supplement

THE WORLD AS IDEA 47

the present; he must struggle, suffer, and die like the brute.
But his life in the abstract, as it lies before his rational
consciousness, is the still reflection of the former, and of
the world in which he lives; it is just that reduced chart
or plan to which we have referred. Here in the sphere of
quiet deliberation, what completely possessed him and
moved him intensely before, appears to him cold, colour^
less, and for the moment external to him; he is merely the
spectator, the observer. In respect of this withdrawal into
reflection he may be compared to an actor who has played
his part in one scene, and who takes his place among the
audience till it is time for him to go upon the stage again,
and quietly looks on at whatever may happen, even though
it be the preparation for his own death (in the piece), but
afterwards he again goes on the stage and acts and suffers
as he must. From this double life proceeds that quietness
peculiar to human beings, so very different from the
thoughtlessness of the brutes, and with which, in accordance
with previous reflection, or a formed determination, or a
recognised necessity, a man suffers or accomplishes in cold
blood, what is of the utmost and often terrible importance
to him; suicide, execution, the duel, enterprises of every
kind fraught with danger to life, and, in general, things
against which his whole animal nature rebels. Under such
circumstances we see to what an extent reason has mastered
the animal nature, and we say to the strong: oidi]Qeiov vv
101 fiTOQ\ {ferreum certe t'lbi cor), II. 24, 521.^ Here we
can say truly that reason manifests itself practically, and
thus wherever action is guided by reason, where the motives
are abstract concepts, wherever we are not determined by
particular ideas of perception, nor by the impression of the
moment which guides the brutes, there 'practical reason
shows itself.

The ideal explained in the Stoical fhilosofhy is the mos^

1 Surely your heart is of iron.

^8 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

complete development of fractical reason in the true and
genuine sense of the word; it is the highest summit to which
man can attain by the mere use of his reason, and in it hi?
difference from the brutes shows itself most distinctly. For
the ethics of Stoicism are, originally and essentially, not 9
doctrine of virtue, but merely a guide to a rational life,
the end and aim of which is happiness through peace of
mind. Virtuous conduct appears in it as it were merely by
accident, as the means, not as the end. Therefore the
ethical theory of Stoicism is in its whole nature and point
of view fundamentally different from the ethical systems
which lay stress directly upon virtue, such as the doctrines
of the Vedas, of Plato, of Christianity, and of Kant.
Yet the ethics of Stoicism teach that happiness can only be
attained with certainty through inward peace and quietness
of spirit (aia^aCfa), and that this again can only be reached
through virtue; this is the whole meaning of the saying that
virtue is the highest good. But if indeed by degrees the end
is lost sight of in the means, and virtue is inculcated in a
way which discloses an interest entirely different from that
of one's own happiness, for it contradicts this too distinctly;
this is just one of those inconsistencies by means of which,
in every system, the immediately known, or, as it is called,
felt truth, leads us back to the right way in defiance of
syllogistic reasoning; as, for example, we see clearly in
the ethical teaching of Spinoza, which deduces a pure
doctrine of virtue from the egoistical suum utile qucerere
by means of palpable sophisms. According to this, as I con-
ceive the spirit of the Stoical ethics, their source lies in the
question whether the great prerogative of man, reason,
which, by means of planned action and its results, relieves
life and its burdens so much, might not also be capable of
freeing him at once, directly, i.e.y through mere knowledge,
completely, or nearly so, of the sorrows and miseries of
every kind of which his life is full. They held that it was

THE WORLD AS IDEA 49

not in keeping with the prerogative of reason that the
nature given with it, which by means of it comprehends
and contemplates an infinity of things and circumstances,
should yet, through the present, and the accidents that can
be contained in the few years of a life that is short, fleeting,
and uncertain, be exposed to such intense pain, to such
great anxiety and suffering, as arise from the tempestuous
strain of the desires and the antipathies; and they believed
that the due application of reason must raise men above
them, and can make them invulnerable. Therefore Antis-
thenes says: Aei xzaoOai vovv^ t] ^qoxov (aut mentem
farandarriy aut laqueum^ i.e.y life is so full of troubles and
vexations, that one must either rise above it by means of
corrected thoughts, or leave it. It was seen that want and
suffering did not directly and of necessity spring from not
having, but from desiring to have and not having; that
therefore this desire to have is the necessary condition under
which alone it becomes a privation not to have and begets
pain. Men learned also from experience that it is only the
hope of what is claimed that begets and nourishes the wish;
therefore neither the many unavoidable evils which are
common to all, nor unattainable blessings, disquiet or
trouble us, but only the trifling more or less of those things
which we can avoid or attain; indeed, not only what is
absolutely unavoidable or unattainable, but also what is
merely relatively so, leaves us quite undisturbed; therefore
the ills that have once become joined to our individuality,
or the good things that must of necessity always be denied
us, are treated with indifference, in accordance with the
peculiarity of human nature that every wish soon dies and
can no more beget pain if it is not nourished by hope. It
followed from all this that happiness always depends upon
the proportion between our claims and what we receive.
It is all one whether the quantities thus related be great or
^ Either a prepared mind, or death.

50 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

Bmall, and the proportion can be established just as well
by diminishing the amount of the first as by increasing the
amount of the second; and in the same way it also follows
that all suffering proceeds from the want of proportion
between what we demand and expect and what we get.
Now this want of proportion obviously lies only in knowl-
edge, and it could be entirely abolished through fuller
insight.^ Therefore Chrysippus says: one ought to live with
a due knowledge of the transitory nature of the things of
the world. For as often as a man loses self-command, or is
struck down by a misfortune, or grows angry, or becomes
faint-hearted, he shows that he finds things different from
i\'hat he expected, consequently that he was caught in error,
and did not know the world and life, did not know that
the will of the individual is crossed at every step by the
chance of inanimate nature and the antagonism of aims
and the v/ickedness of other individuals: he has therefore
either not made use of his reason in order to arrive at a
general knowledge of this characteristic of life, or he lacks
judgment, in that he does not recognise in the particular
what he knows in general, and is therefore surprised by it
and loses his self-command.^ Thus also every keen pleasure
is an error and an illusion, for no attained wish can give
lasting satisfaction; and, moreover, every possession and
ever}^ happiness is but lent by chance for an uncertain time,
and may therefore be demanded back the next hour. All
pain rests on the passing away of such an illusion; thus
both arise from defective knowledge; the wise man there-

^ Omnes perturbationes judicio censent fieri et opinione. Cic.
Tusc, 4, 6. Tapaaaei tovs ai^Opcowovs ov ra Trpay/xara, aWa ra Trcpi
Tb}v irpay/xaTOJv doyfxaTa (Perturbant homines non res ipsae, sed de
rebus opiniones). Epictet., c. v.

2 TovTO yap eari to ai.Ti.pv tois avOpoJiroLS TravTWv tuu icaKiov, to ras
wpoXrj^eis Tas KOivas p-f] 8vvac6ai ecpap/xo^eiv rais eiri p.epovs (Haec est
causa mortalibus omnium malorum, non posse communes notiones
aptare singularibus) . Epict. dissert., ii., 26.

THE WORLD AS IDEA 51

fore holds himself equally aloof from joy and sorrow, and
no event disturbs his azagaCia,

The ethical system of Stoicism, regarded as a whole, h
in fact a very valuable and estimable attempt to use the
great prerogative of man, reason, for an important and
salutary end; to raise him above the suffering and pain to
which all life is exposed, by means of a maxim —

"Qua ratio ne queas traducere leniter aevum:
Ne te semper inops agitet vexetque cupido,
Ne pavor ct rerum mediocriter utilium spes," ^

and thus to make him partake, in the highest degree, of the
dignity which belongs to him as a rational being, as dis-
tinguished from the brutes; a dignity of which, in this
sense at arxy rate, w'e can speak, though not in any other.
It is a consequence of my view of the ethical system of
Stoicism that it must be explained at the part of my work at
which I consider what reason is and what it can do. But
although it may to a certain extent be possible to attain that
end througJi the application of reason, and through a purely
rational system of ethics, and although experience shows
that the happiest men are those purely rational characters
commonly called practical philosophers, — and rightly so,
because just as the true, that is, the theoretical philosopher
carries life into the concept, they carry the concept into
life, — yet it is far from the case that perfection can be
attained in this way, and that the reason, rightly used, can
really free us from the burden and sorrow of life, and lead
us to happiness. Rather, there lies an absolute contradiction
in wishing to live without suffering, and this contradiction
is also implied in the commonly used expression, "blessed
life." This will become perfectly clear to whoever compre-

^ Would you learn how to pass your years tranquilly ; do not let
greedy desire always vex and agitate you, nor fear nor hope of
mediocre wealth

■^2 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

hends the whole of the following exposition. In this purely
rational system of ethics the contradiction reveals itself
thus, the Stoic is obliged in his doctrine of the way to the
blessed life (for that is what his ethical system always
remains) to insert a recommendation of suicide (as among
the magnificent ornaments and apparel of Eastern despots
there is always a costly vial of poison) for the case in which
the sufferings of the body, which cannot be philosophised
away by any principles or syllogistic reasonings, are para-
mount and incurable; thus its one aim, blessedness, is
rendered vain, and nothing remains as a mode of escape
from suffering except death ; in such a case then death must
be voluntarily accepted, just as we would take any other
medicine. Here then a marked antagonism is brought out
between the ethical system of Stoicism and all those systems
referred to above which make virtue in itself directly, and
accompanied by the most grievous sorrows, their aim, and
will not allow a man to end his life in order to escape from
suffering. Not one of them, however, was able to give
the true reason for the rejection of suicide, but they la-
boriously collected illusory explanations from all sides: the
true reason will appear in the Fourth Book in the course
of the development of our system. But the antagonism re-
ferred to reveals and establishes the essential difference in
fundamental principle between Stoicism, which is just a
special form of endsemonism, and those doctrines we have
mentioned, although both are often at one in their
results, and are apparently related. And the inner contra-
diction referred to above, with which the ethical system of
Stoicism is affected even in its fundamental thought, shows
itself further in the circumstance that its ideal, the Stoic
philosopher, as the system itself represents him, could never
obtain life or inner poetic truth, but remains a wooden,
stiff lay-figure of which nothing can be made. He cannot
himself make use of his wisdom, and his perfect peace.

THE WORLD AS IDEA 53

contentment, a\id blessedness directly contradict the nature
of man, and preclude us from forming any concrete idea
of him. When compared with him, how entirely different
appear the overcomers of the world, and voluntary hermits
that Indian philosophy presents to us, and has actually pro-
duced; or indeed, the holy man of Christianity, that excel-
lent form full of deep life, of the greatest poetic truth, and
the highest significance, which stands before us in perfect
virtue, holiness, and sublimity, yet in a state of supreme
buffering/

^ CI. Cb. n6 of Supplement.

Second Book
THE WORLD AS WILL

FIRST ASPECT

THE OBJECTIFICATION OF THE WILL

Nos habitat, non tartara, sed nee sideta coeli:
Spiritus, in nobis qui viget, ilia facit.

II

§ 1 7- In the first book we considered the idea mereiy
as such, that is, only according to its general form. It is
true that as far as the abstract idea, the concept, is con-
cerned, we obtained a knowledge of it in respect of its
content also, because it has content and meaning only in
relation to the idea of perception, without which it would
be worthless and empty. Accordingly, directing our atten-
tion exclusively to the idea of perception, we shall now
endeavour to arrive at a knowledge of its content, its more
exact definition, and the forms which it presents to us. And
it will specially interest us to find an explanation of its
peculiar significance, that significance which is otherwise
merely felt, but on account of which it is that these pic-
tures do not pass by us entirely strange and meaningless,
as they must otherwise do, but speak to us directly, are un-
derstood, and obtain an interest which concerns our whole
nature.

We direct our attention to mathematics, natural science,
and philosophy, for each of these holds out the hope that it
will afford us a part of the explanation we desire. Now,
taking philosophy first, we find that it is like a monster with
many heads, each of which speaks a different language.
They are not, indeed, all at variance on the point we are
here considering, the significance of the idea of perception.
For, with the exception of the Sceptics and the Idealists,
the others, for the most part, speak very much in the same
way of an object which constitutes the basis of the idea, and
which is indeed different in its whole being and nature from
the idea, but yet is in all points as like it as one egg is to
another. But this does not help us, for ^e are quite unabU

57

58 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

to distinguish such an object from the idea; we find that
they are one and the same; for every object always and
for ever presupposes a subject, and therefore remains idea,
%o that we recognised objectivity as belonging to the most
universal form of the idea, which is the division into subject
ftnd object. Further, the principle of sufficient reason, which
is referred to in support of this doctrine, is for us merely
the form of the idea, the orderly combination of one idea
with another, but not the combination of the whole finite
or infinite series of ideas with something which is not idea
at all, and which cannot therefore be presented in percep-
tion. Of the Sceptics and Idealists we spoke above, in ex-
amining the controversy about the reality of the outer
world.

If we turn to mathematics to look for the fuller knowl-
edge we desire of the idea of perception, which we have,
as yet, only understood generally, merely in its form, we
find that mathematics only treats of these ideas so far as
they fill time and space, that is, so far as they are quantities.
It will tell us with the greatest accuracy the how-many and
the how-much; but as this is always merely relative, that is
to say, merely a comparison of one idea with others, and a
comparison only in the one respect of quantity, this also
is not the information we are principally in search of.

Lastly, if we turn to the wide province of natural science,
which is divided into many fields, we may, in the first place,
make a general division of it into two parts. It is either
the description of forms, which I call Morphology, or the
explanation of changes, which I call Etiology. The first
treats of the permanent forms, the second of the changing
matter, according to the laws of its transition from one
form to another. The first is the whole extent of what is
generally called natural history. It teaches us, especially in
the sciences of botany and zoology, the various permanent,
organised, and therefore definitely determined forms in the

THE WORLD AS WILL 59

constant change of individuals; and these forms constitute
a great part of the content of the idea of perception. In
natural history they are classified, separated, united, ar-
ranged according to natural and artificial systems, and
brought under concepts which make a general view and
knowledge of the whole of them possible. Further, an in-
finitely fine analogy both in the whole and in the parts
of these forms, and running through them all (unite de
flan), is established, and thus they may be compared to
innumerable variations on a theme which is not given.
The passage of matter into these forms, that is to say, the
origin of individuals, is not a special part of natural science,
for every individual springs from its like by generation,
which is everywhere equally mysterious, and has as yet
evaded definite knowledge. The little that is known on
the subject finds its place in physiology, which belongs to
that part of natural science I have called etiology. Min-
eralogy also, especially where it becomes geology, inclines
towards etiology, though it principally belongs to mor*
phology. Etiology proper comprehends all those branches
of natural science in which the chief concern is the knowl-*
edge of cause and effect. The sciences teach how, according
to an invariable rule, one condition of matter is necessarily
followed by a certain other condition; how one change
necessarily conditions and brings about a certain other
change; this sort of teaching is called exflanation. The
principal sciences in this department are mechanics, physics,
chemistry, and physiology.

If, however, we surrender ourselves to its teaching, we
soon become convinced that etiology cannot afford us the
information we chiefly desire, any more than morphology.
The latter presents to us innumerable and infinitely varied
forms, which are yet related by an unmistakable family
likeness. These are for us ideas, and when only treated in
this way, they remain always strange to us, and stand befora

io THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

us like hieroglyphics which we do not understand. Etiology,
Dn the other hand, teaches us that, according to the law of
tause and effect, this particular condition of matter brings
about that other particular condition, and thus it has ex-
plained it and performed its part. However, it really does
nothing more than indicate the orderly arrangement accord-
ing to which the states of matter appear in space and time,
and teach in all cases what phenomenon must necessarily
appear at a particular time in a particular place. It thus
determines the position of phenomena in time and space,
according to a law whose special content is derived from ex-
perience, but whose universal form and necessity is yet
known to us independently of experience. But it affords us
absolutely no information about the inner nature of any one
of these phenomena: this is called a force of naturcy and
it lies outside the province of causal explanation, which
calls the constant uniformity with which manifestations
of such a force appear whenever their known conditions
are present, a law of nature. But this law of nature, these
conditions, and this appearance in a particular place at a
particular time, are all that it knows or ever can know.
The force itself which manifests itself, the inner nature
of the phenomena which appear in accordance with these
laws, remains always a secret to it, something entirely
strange and unknown in the case of the simplest as well as
of the most complex phenomena. For although as yet etiology
has most completely achieved its aim in mechanics, and
least completely in physiology, still the force on account
of which a stone falls to the ground or one body repels
another is, in its inner nature, not less strange and mys-
terious than that which produces the movements and the
growth of an animal. The science of mechanics presupposes
matter, weight, impenetrability, the possibility of communi-
cating motion by impact, inertia and so forth as ultimate
facts, calls them forces of nature, and their necessary and

THE WORLD AS WILL 6i

orderly appearance under certain conditions a law laf na-
ture. Only after this does its explanation begin, and it
consists in indicating truly and with mathematical exactness,
how, where and when each force manifests itself, and in
referring every phenomenon which presents itself to the
operation of one of these forces. Physics, chemistry, and
physiology proceed in the same way in their province, only
they presuppose more and accomplish less. Consequently
the most complete etiological explanation of the whole of
nature can never be more than an enumeration of forces
which cannot be explained, and a reliable statement of the
rule according to which phenomena appear in time and
space, succeed, and make way for each other. But the
inner nature of the forces which thus appear remains unex"
plained by such an explanation, which must confine itself
to phenomena and their arrangement, because the law which
it follows does not extend further. In this respect it may be
compared to a section of a piece of marble which shows
many veins beside each other, but does not allow us to
trace the course of the veins from the interior of the marble.
to its surface. Or, if I may use an absurd but more striking
comparison, the philosophical investigator must always haw
the same feeling towards the complete etiology of the whole
of nature as a man who, without knowing how, has been
brought into a company quite unknown to him, each mem«
ber of which in turn presents another to him as his friend
and cousin, and therefore as quite well known, and yet
the man himself, while at each introduction he expresses
himself gratified, has alwap the question on his lips: "But
how the deuce do I stand to the whole company?"

Thus we see that, with regard to those phenomena which
we know only as our ideas, etiology can never give us the
desired information that shall carry us beyond this point.
For, after all its explanations, they still remain quite strange
to us, as mere ideas whose significance we do not under-

Mamle Doud Eisenhower

Public Library

12 Garden Center

Bfoomfield, CO 8002a

62 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

stand. The causal connection merely gives us the rule and
the relative order of their appearance in space and time,
but affords us no further knowledge of that which so
appears. Moreover, the law of causality itself has only
validity for ideas, for objects of a definite class, and it has
meaning only in so far as it presupposes them. Thus, like
these objects themselves, it always exists only in relation to
a subject, that is, conditionally; and so it is known just
as well if we start from the subject, /.<?., a 'priori^ as if we
start from the object, t.e.y a 'posteriori. Kant indeed has
taught us this.

But what now impels us to inquiry is just that we are
not satisfied with knowing that we have ideas, that they
are such and such, and that they are connected according
to certain laws, the general expression of which is the
principle of sufficient reason. We wish to know the signifi-
cance of these ideas; we ask whether this world is merely
idea; in which case it would pass by us like an empty
dream or a baseless vision, not w'orth our notice; or whether
it is also something else, something more than idea, and
if so, what. Thus much is certain, that this something we
seek for must be completely and in its whole nature different
from the idea; that the forms and laws of the idea must
therefore be completely foreign to it; further, that we
cannot arrive at it from the idea under the guidance of
the laws which merely combine objects, ideas, among them-
selves, and which are the forms of the principle of suffi-
cient reason.

Thus we see already that we can never arrive at the real
»iature of things from without. However much we investi-
gate, we can never reach anything but images and names.
We are like a man who goes round a castle seeking in vain
for an entrance, and sometimes sketching the fagades. And
yet this is the method that has been followed by all
philosophers before me.

THE WORLD AS WILL 63 /

^ 18. In fact, the meaning for which we seek of that
world which is present to us only as our idea, or the transi-
tion from the world as mere idea of the knowing subject
to whatever it may be besides this, would never be found
if the investigator himself were nothing more than the
pure knowing subject (a winged cherub without a body).
But he is himself rooted in that world; he finds himself in
it as an individual, that is to say, his knowledge, which is
the necessary supporter of the whole world as idea, is yet
always given through the medium of a body, whose af-
fections are, as we have shown, the starting-point for the
understanding in the perception of that world. His body is,
for the pure knowing subject, an idea like every other idea,
an object among objects. Its movements and actions are so
far known to him in precisely the same way as the changes
of all other perceived objects, and would be just as strange
and incomprehensible to him if their meaning were not
explained for him in an entirely different way. Otherwise
he would see his actions follow upon given motives with
the constancy of a law of nature, just as the changes of
other objects follow upon causes, stimuli, or motives. But
he would not understand the influence of the motives any
more than the connection between every other effect which
he sees and its cause. He would then call the inner nature
of these manifestations and actions of his body which he
did not understand a force, a quality, or a character, as
he pleased, but he would have no further insight into it. But
all this is not the case; indeed the answer to the riddle is
given to the subject of knowledge who appears as an indi-
vidual, and the answer is will. This and this alone gives him
"he key to his own existence, reveals to him the significance,
shows him the inner mechanism of his being, of his action,
of his movements. The body is given in two entirely dif-
ferent ways to the subject of knowledge, who becomes an
individual only through his identity with it. It is given a5

64 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

an idea in intelligent perception, as an object among objects
and subject to the laws of objects. And it is also given in
quite a different way as that which is immediately known
to every one, and is signified by the word will. Every true
act of his will is also at once and without exception a move-
ment of his body. The act of will and the movement of the
body are not two different things objectively known, which
the bond of causality unites; they do not stand in the relation
of cause and effect; they are one and the same, but they are
given in entirely different ways, — immediately, and again
in perception for the understanding. The action of the body
is nothing but the act of the will objectified, i.e,y passed
into perception. It will appear later that this is true of every
movement of the body, not merely those which follow upon
motives, but also involuntary movements which follow upon
mere stimuli, and, indeed, that the whole body is nothing
but objectified will, i.e.y will become idea. All this will be
proved and made quite clear in the course of this work. In
one respect, therefore, I shall call the body the objectivity
of will; as in the previous book, and in the essay on the
principle of sufficient reason, in accordance with the one-
wded point of view intentionally adopted there (that of the
idea), I called it the immediate object. Thus in a certain
sense we may also say that will is the knowledge a 'priori
of the body, and the body is the knowledge a posteriori of
the will.

§ 19. In the first book we were reluctantly driven to
explain the human body as merely idea of the subject which
knows it, like all the other objects of this world of percep-
tion. But it has now become clear that what enables us
consciously to distinguish our own body from all other
objects which in other respects are precisely the same, is
ihat our body appears in consciousness in quite another way
\\oto genere different from idea, and this we denote by the
Word willi and that it is just this double knowledge which

THE WORLD AS WILL 6$

we have of our own body that affords us information about
it, about its action and movement following on motives,
and also about what it experiences by means of external
impressions; in a word, about what it is, not as idea, but
as more than idea; that is to say, what it is in itself. None
of this information have we got directly with regard to the
nature, action, and experience of other real objects.

It is just because of this special relation to one body that
the knowing subject is an individual. For regarded apart
from this relation, his body is for him only an idea likfl
all other ideas. But the relation through which the know
ing subject is an individual, is just on that account a relation
which subsists only between him and one particular idea of
all those which he has. Therefore he is conscious of thh
one idea, not merely as an idea, but in quite a different way
as a will. If, however, he abstracts from that special rela-
tion, from that twofold and completely heterogeneoui
knowledge of what is one and the same, then that one, th9
body, is an idea like all other ideas. Therefore, in order
to understand the matter, the individual who knows must
either assume that what distinguishes that one idea from
others is merely the fact that his knowledge stands in this
double relation to it alone; that insight in two ways at
the same time is open to him only in the case of this one
object of perception, and that this is to be explained not
by the difference of this object from all others, but only
by the difference between the relation of his knowledge to
this one object, and its relation to all other objects. Or else
he must assume that this object is essentially different from
all others; that it alone of all objects is at oncc^ both will
and idea, while the rest are only ideas, i.e., only phantoms.
Thus he must assume that his body is the only real individual
in the world, i.e., the only phenomenon of will and the
only immediate object of the subject. That other objects,
considered merely as ideas, are like his body, that is, like

i66 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

it, fill space (which itself can only be present as idea), and
also, like it, are causally active in space, is indeed demon-
strably certain from the law of causality which is a priori
valid for ideas, and which admits of no effect without a
cause ; but apart from the fact that we can only reason from
an effect to a cause generally, and not to a similar cause,
we are still in the sphere of mere ideas, in which alone the
law of causality is valid, and beyond which it can never take
us. But whether ths° objects known to the individual only
as ideas are yet, like his own body, manifestations of a will,
is, as was said in the First Book, the proper meaning of the
question as to the reality of the external world. To deny
this is theoretical egoismy which on that account regards
lill phenomena that are outside its own will as phantoms,
just as in a practical reference exactly the same thing is done
by practical egoism. For in it a man regards and treats him*
self alone as a person, and all other persons as mere phan-
toms. Theoretical egoism can never be demonstrably refuted,
yet in philosophy it has never been used otherwise than as
a sceptical sophism, i.e.y a pretence. As a serious conviction,
on the other hand, it could only be found in a madhouse, and
as such it stands in need of a cure rather than a refutation.
We do not therefore combat it any further in this regard,
but treat it as merely the last stronghold of scepticism,
which is always polemical. Thus our knowledge, which is
always bound to individuality and is limited by this circum^
stance, brings with it the necessity that each of us can only
be oney while, on the other hand, each of us can know all;
and it is this limitation that creates the need for philosophy.
We therefore who, for this very reason, are striving to
extend the limits of our knowledge through philosophy,
will treat this sceptical argument of theoretical egoism
which meets us, as an army would treat a small frontier
fortress. The fortress cannot indeed be taken, but the gar-
rison can never sally forth from it, and therefore we pass

THE WORLD AS WILL 67

it by without danger, and are not afraid to have it in our
rear.

The double knowledge which each of us has of the na-
ture and activity of his own body, and which is given
in two completely different ways, has now been clearly
brought out. We shall accordingly make further use of
it as a key to the nature of every phenomenon in nature,
and shall judge of all objects which are not our own
bodies, and are consequently not given to our conscious-
ness in a double way but only as ideas, according to the
analogy of our own bodies, and shall therefore assume
that as in one aspect they are idea, just like our bodies,
and in this respect are analogous to them, so in anothef
aspect, what remains cf objects when we set aside theii
existence as idea of the subject, must in its inner naturd
be the same as that in us which we call will. For what
other kind of existence or reality should we attribute to
the rest of the material world? Whence should we take
the elements out of which we construct such n world?
Besides will and idea nothing is known to us or thinkable.
If we wish to attribute the greatest known reality to the
material world which exists immediately only in our idea,
we give it the reality which our own body has for each
of us; for that is the most real thing for every one. But
if we now analyse the reality of this body and its actions,
beyond the fact that it is idea, we find nothing in it except
the will; with this its reality is exhausted. Therefore we
can nowhere find another kind of reality which we can
attribute to the material world. Thus if we hold that the
material world is something more than merely our idea,
we must say that besides being idea, that is, in itself and
according to its inmost nature, it is that which we find
immediately in ourselves as wfll. I say according to its
inmost nature; but we must first come to know more ac-
curately this real nature of the will, in order that w« mzy

68 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

be able to distinguish from it what does not belong to itself,
but to its manifestation, which has many grades. Such, for
example, is the circumstance of its being accompanied by
knowledge, and the determination by motives which is con-
ditioned by this knowledge. As we shall see farther on, this
does not belong to the real nature of will, but merely to
its distinct manifestation as an animal or a human being. If,
therefore, I say, — the force which attracts a stone to the
earth is according to its nature, in itself, and apart from
all idea, will, I shall not be supposed to express in this
proposition the insane opinion that the stone moves itself
in accordance with a known motive, merely because this is
the way in which will appears in man. We shall now pro-
ceed more clearly and in detail to prove, establish, and
develop to its full extent what as yet has only been pro-
visionally and generally explained.

§ 20. As we have said, the will proclaims itself primarily
in the voluntary movements of our own body, as the
inmost nature of this body, as that which it is besides being
object of perception, idea. For these voluntary movements
are nothing else than the visible aspect of the individual
acts of will, with which they are directly coincident and
identical, and only distinguished through the form of knowl-
edge into which they have passed, and in which alone they
can be known, the form of idea.

But these acts of will have always a ground or reason
outside themselves in motives. Yet these motives never de-
termine more than what I will at this time, in this place, and
under these circumstances, not that I will in general, or
what I will in general, that is, the maxims which char-
acterise my volition generally. Therefore the inner nature
of my volition cannot be explained from these motives;
but they merely determine its manifestation at a given
point of time: they are merely the occasion of my will show-
mg itself; but the will itsel' lies outside the province of

THE WORLD AS WILL 69

the law of motivation, which determines nothing but its
appearance at each point of time. It is only under the
presupposition of my empirical character that the motive is
a sufficient ground of explanation of my action. But if 1
abstract from my character, and then ask, why, in general,,
I will this and not that, no answer is possible, because it is
only the manifestation of the will that is subject to the
principle of sufficient reason, and not the will itself, which
in this respect is to be called groundless.

If now every action of my body is the manifestation of
an act of will in which my will itself in general, and as
a whole, thus my character, expresses itself under given
motives, manifestation of the will must be the inevitable
condition and presupposition of every action. For the facA
of its manifestation cannot depend upon something which
does not exist directly and only through it, which conse**
quently is for it merely accidental, and through which its
manifestation itself would be merely accidental. Now thaf
condition is just the whole body itself. Thus the body itself
must be manifestation of the will, and it must be related
to my will as a whole, that is, to my intelligible character^
whose phenomenal appearance in time is my empirical char«
acter, as the particular action of the body is related to thp
particular act of the will. The whole body, then, must br (
simply my will become visible, must be my will itself, S(r
far as this is object of perception, an idea of the first class.
It has already been advanced in confirmation of this that
every impression upon my body also affects my will at once
and immediately, and in this respect is called pain of
pleasure, or, in its lower degrees, agreeable or disagree-
able sensation; and also, conversely, that every vi<.lent
movement of the will, every emotion or passion, convulses
the body and disturbs the course of its functions. Indeed
we can also give an etiological account, though a very in-
complete one, of the origin of my body, and a somewhat

70 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

better account of its development and conservation, and
this is the substance of physiology. But physiology merely
explains its theme in precisely the same way as motives ex-
plain action. Thus the physiological explanation of the
functions of the body detracts just as little from the philo-
sophical truth that the v^^hole existence of this body and the
sum total of its functions are merely the objectification of
that will which appears in its outward actions in accordance
with a motive, as the establishment of the individual action
through the motive and the necessar)'- sequence of the action
from the motive conflicts with the fact that action in gen-
.»ral, and according to its nature, is only the manifestation
D\^ a will which itself has no ground. If, however, physiology
tries to refer even these outward actions, the immediate
voluntary movements, to causes in the organism, — for ex-
ample, if it explains the movement of the muscles as result-
ing from the presence of fluids, even supposing it really
could give a thorough explanation of this kind, yet this
would never invalidate the immediately certain truth that
every voluntary motion {functiones ani?nales) is the mani-
festation of an act of will. Now, just as little can the
physiological explanation of vegetative life (functiones na-
turales vitales), however far it may advance, ever invali-
date the truth that the whole animal life which thus develops
itself is the manifestation of will. In general, then, as we
have shown above, no etiological explanation can ever give
us more than the necessarily determined position in time and
space of a particular manifestation, its necessary appearance
there, according to a fixed law; but the inner nature of
everything that appears in this way remains wholly inex-
plicable, and is presupposed by every etiological explanation,
and merely indicated by the names, force, or law of nature,
or, if we are speaking of action, character or will. Thus,
although every particular action, under the presupposition
of the definite character, necessarily follows from the given

THE WORLD AS WILL ys

motive, and although growth, the process of nourish a lent,
and all the changes of the animal body take place according
to necessarily acting causes (stimuli), yet the whole series
of actions, and consequently every individual act, and also-
its condition, the whole body itself which accomplishes it,
and therefore also the process through which and in which
It exists, are nothing but the manifestation of the will, the
becoming visible, the objectificatlon of the will. Upon this
rests the perfect suitableness of the human and animal body
to the human and animal will in general, resembling,
though far surpassing, the correspondence between an instru"
ment made for a purpose and the will of the maker, and
on this account appearing as design, i.e., the teleological
explanation of the body. The parts of the body must, there-
fore, completely correspond to the principal desires through
which the will manifests itself; they must be the visible
expression of these desires. Teeth, throat, and bowels are
objectified hunger; the organs of generation are objectified
sexual desire; the grasping hand, the hurrying feet, cor-
respond to the more indirect desires of the will which they
express. As the human form generally corresponds to the
human will generally, so the individual bodily structure
corresponds to the individually modified will, the character
of the individual, and therefore it is throughout and in all
parts characteristic and full of expression.

§21. Whoever has now gained from all these expositions
a knowledge in abstractOy and therefore clear and certain,
of what every one knows directly in concretOy i.e., as feel-
ing, a knowledge that his will is the real inner nature of
his phenomenal being, which manifests itself to him as
idea, both in his actions and in their permanent substratum,
his body, and that his will is that which is most immediate
in his consciousness, though it has not as such completely
passed into the form of idea in which object and subject
stand over against each other, but makes itself known fa

72 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER ^

him in a direct manner, in which he docs not quite clearly
distinguish subject and object, yet is not known as a whole
to the individual himself, but only in its particular acts, —
whoever, I say, has with me gained this conviction will
find that of itself it affords him the key to the knowledge
of the inmost being of the whole of nature; for he now
transfers it to all those phenomena which are not given to
him, like his own phenomenal existence, both in direct and
indirect knowledge, but only in the latter, thus merely one-
eidedly as idea alone. He will recognise this will of which
we are speaking not only in those phenomenal existences
which exactly resemble his own, in men and animals as
their inmost nature, but the course of reflection will lead
him to recognise the force which germinates and vegetates
in the plant, and indeed the force through which the crystal
is formed, that by which the magnet turns to the north
pole, the force whose shock he experiences from the contact
of two different kinds of metals, the force which appears
in the elective affinities of matter as repulsion and attraction,
decomposition and combination, and, lastly, even gravitation,
which acts so powerfully throughout matter, draws the
stone to the earth and the earth to the sun, — all these, I
say, he will recognise as different only in their phenomenal
existence, but in their inner nature as identical, as that
which is directly known to him so intimately and so much
better than anything else, and which in its most distinct
manifestation is called unit. It is this application of reflec-
iion alone that prevents us from remaining any longer at the
phenomenon, and leads us to the thlng-'m-itseLf. Phenomenal
existence is idea and nothing more. All idea, of whatever
kind it may be, all object) is 'phenomenal existence, but the
will alone is a thing-in-ttself . As such, it is throughout not
idea, but toto genere different from it; it is that of which
all idea, all object, is the phenomenal appearance, the
visibility, the objectification. It is the inmost nature, the

THE WORLD AS WILL) 73*

kernel of every particular thing, and also of the whole. It
appears in every blind force of nature and also in the
preconsidered action of man; and the great difference
between these two is merely in the degree of the manifesta-
tion not in the nature of what manifests itself.

^ 22 Now, if we are to think as an object this thing-in-
itself (we wish to retain the Kantian expression as a stand-
ing formula), which, as such, is never object, because
all object is its mere manifestation, and therefore cannot
be it itself, we must borrow for it the name and concept
of an object, of something in some way objectively given,
consequently of one of its own manifestations. But in
order to serve as a clue for the understanding, this can be
no other than the most complete of all its mamfestations,
ie the most distinct, the most developed, and directly
enlightened by knowledge. Now this is the human wilL
It is however, well to observe that here, at any r^te we
only' make use of a denommatio a fotion, through which,
therefore, the concept of will receives a greater extension
than it has hitherto had. Knowledge of the identical in
different phenomena, and of difference in similar phenom-
ena is, as Plato so often remarks, a sine qua non ot
philosophy- But hitherto it was not recognised that every
kind of active and operating force in nature is essentially
identical with will, and therefore the multifarious kinds
of phenomena were not seen to be merely different species
of the <^ame genus, but were treated as heterogeneous. Conse^
quently there could be no word to denote the concept of
this genus. I therefore name the genus after its most
important species, the direct knowledge of which lies nearer
to us and guides us to the indirect knowledge of all other
species. But whoever is incapable of carrying out the re-
quired extension of the concept will remain involved ma
permanent misunderstanding. For by the word will h.
understands only that species of it which has hitherto been

74 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

exclusively denoted by it, the will which is guided by
knowledge, and whose manifestation follows only upon
motives, and indeed merely abstract motives, and thus takes
place under the guidance of the reason. This, we have said,
is only the most prominent example of the manifestation
of will. We must now distinctly separate in thought the
inmost essence of this manifestation which is known to
us directly, and then transfer it to all the weaker, less dis-
tinct manifestations of the same nature, and thus we shall
accomplish the desired extension of the concept of will.
From another point of view I should be equally misunder-
stood by any one who should think that it is all the same
in the end whether we denote this inner nature of all
phenomena by the word will or by any other. This would
be the case if the thing-in-itself were something whose
^rxistence we merely inferred, and thus knew indirectly and
only in the abstract. Then, indeed, we might call it what
we pleased; the name would stand merely as the symbol
of an unknown quantity. But the word willy which, like
a magic spell, discloses to us the inmost being of everything
in nature, is by no means an unknown quantity, something
arrived at only by inference, but is fully and immediately
comprehended, and is so familiar to us that we know and
understand what will is far better than anything else what-
ever. The concept of will has hitherto commonly been
■] subordinated to that of force, but I reverse the matter
entirely, and desire that every force in nature should be
thought as will. It must not be supposed that this is mere
verbal quibbling or of no consequence; rather, it is of the
greatest significance and importance. For at the founda-
tion of the concept of force, as of all other concepts, there
ultimately lies the knowledge in sense-perception of the
objective world, that is to say, the phenomenon, the idea;
and the concept is constructed out of this. It is an abstrac-
tion from the province in which cause and effect reign, i.e.y

THE WORLD AS WILL 75^

from ideas of perception, and means just the causal nature
of causes at the point at which this causal nature is no
further etiologically explicable, but is the necessary pre-
supposition of all etiological explanation. The concept will,
on the other hand, is of all possible concepts the only one
which has its source not in the phenomenal, not in the mere
idea_qf perception, but comes from within, and proceeds
from the most immediate consciousness of each of us, in
which each of us knows his own individuality, according
to its nature, immediately, apart from all form, even thai
of subject and object, and which at the same time is thi;
individuality, for here the subject and the object of knowl'
edge are one. If, therefore, we refer the concept of forcA
to that of willy we have in fact referred the less knowiT^
to what is infinitely better known; indeed, to the one thing
that is really immediately and fully known to us, and havf
very greatly extended our knowledge. If, on the contrary,
we subsume the concept of will under that of force, as ha?
hitherto always been done, we renounce the only immediate
knowledge which we have of the inner nature of the world;,
for we allow it to disappear in a concept which is abstracted
from the phenomenal, and with which we can therefore
never go beyond the phenomenal.

§ 23. The will as a thing-in-itself is quite different from
its phenomenal appearance, and entirely free from all the'
forms of the phenomenal, into which it first passes whem
it manifests itself, and which therefore only concern its»
objectivity, and are foreign to the will itself. Even the
most universal form of all idea, that of being object for a
subject, does not concern it; still less the forms which
are subordinate to this and which collectively have their
common expression in the principle of sufficient reasonjs
to which we know that time and space belong, and con-
sequently multiplicity also, which exists and is possible
only through these. In this last regard I shall call time and

76 l^HE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

space the frincifium indivtduationisy borrowing an ex-
pression from the old schoolmen, and I beg to draw
attention to this, once for all. For it is only through
the medium of time and space that what is one and the
same, both according to its nature and to its concept,^ yet
appears as different, as a multiplicity of co-existent and
successive phenomena. Thus time and space are the frin-
cifium individuationis y the subject of so many subtleties and
disputes among the schoolmen. According to what has been
said, the v/ill as a thing-in-itself lies outside the province
of the principle of sufficient reason in all its forms, and is
'Consequently completely groundless, although all its mani-
festations are entirely subordinated to the principle of suffi-
cient reason. Further, it is free from all multiflicity y
although its manifestations in time and space are innu-
merable. It is itself one, though not in the sense in which
an object is one, for the unity of an object can only be
known in opposition to a possible multiplicity; nor yet in
the sense in which a concept is one, for the unity of a con-
jCept originates only in abstraction from a multiplicity; but
it is one as that which lies outside time and space, the
frincifium individuationis y i.e.y the possibility of multiplicity.
Only when all this has become quite clear to us through
the subsequent examination of the phenomena and dif-
ferent manifestations of the will, shall we fully under-
stand the meaning of the Kantian doctrine that time, space
and causality do not belong to the thing-in-itself, but are
only forms of knowing.

The uncaused nature of will has been actually recog-
nised, where it manifests itself most distinctly, as the will
of man, and this has been called free, independent. But
on account of the uncaused nature of the will itself, the
necessity to which its manifestation is everywhere sub-
jected has been overlooked, and actions are treated as free,
4vhich they are not. For every individual action follows

THE WORLD AS WILL 77

with strict necessity from the effect of the motive upon
the character. All necessity is, as we have already said, the
relation of the consequent to the reason, and nothing more.
The principle of sufficient reason is the universal form of
all phenomena, and man in his action must be subordinated
to it like every other phenomenon. But because in self-
consciousness the will is known directly and in itself, ix>
this consciousness lies also the consciousness of freedom.
The fact is, however, overlooked that the individual, th«
person, is not will as a thing-in-itself, but is a fhenoTnenoit
of will, is already determined as such, and has come under
the form of the phenomenal, the principle of sufficient
reason. Hence arises the strange fact that every one believe*
himself a priori to be perfectly free, even in his individual!
actions, and thinks that at every moment he can commence
another manner of life, which just means that he carr
become another person. But a fosteriori, through experience,
he finds to his astonishment that he is not free, but sub-
jected to necessity; that in spite of all his resolutions and
reflections he does not change his conduct, and that from the
beginning of his life to the end of it, he must carry out the
very character which he himself condemns, and as it were
play the part he has undertaken to the end. I cannot pursue
this subject further at present, for it belongs, as ethical, to
another part of this work. In the meantime, I only wish to
point out here that the fhenomenon of the will which
in itself is uncaused, is yet as such subordinated to the law
of necessity, that is, the principle of sufficient reason, sc
that in the necessity with which the phenomena of nature
follow each other, we may find nothing to hinder us from
recognising in them the manifestations of will.

Only those changes which have no other ground than
a motive, i.e.y an idea, have hitherto been regarded as
manifestations of will. Therefore in nature a will has only
been attributed to man, or at the most to animals; foi

78 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

knowledge, the idea is, of course, as I have said elsewhere,
the true and exclusive characteristic of animal life. But
ihat the will is also active where no knowledge guides it,
we see at once in the instinct and the mechanical skill
of animals. That they have ideas and knowledge is here
not to the point, for the end towards which they strive as
definitely as if it were a known motive, is yet entirely un-
known to them. Therefore in such cases their action takes
place without motive, is not guided by the idea, and shows
us first and most distinctly how the will may be active en-
tirely without knowledge. The bird of a year old has no
idea of the eggs for which it builds a nest; the young spider
has no idea of the prey for which it spins a web; nor
has the ant-lion any idea of the ants for which he digs a
trench for the first time. The larva of the stag-beetle makes
the hole in the wood, in which it is to await its meta-
morphosis, twice as big if it is going to be a male beetle
as if it is going to be a female, so that if it is a male there
may be room for the horns, of which, however, it has no
idea. In such actions of these creatures the will is clearly
operative as in their other actions, but it is in blind activity,
which is indeed accompanied by knowledge but not guided
by it. If now we have once gained insight into the fact,
that idea as motive is not a necessary and essential condition
of the activity of the will, we shall more easily recognise
the activity of will where it is less apparent. For example,
we shall see that the house of the snail is no more made by a
will which is foreign to the snail itself, than the house
which we build is produced through another will than our
jwn; but we shall recognise in both houses the work of a
will which objectifies itself in both the phenomena — a will
which works in us according to motives, but in the snail
still blindly as formative impulse directed outwards. In
us ;^lso the same will is in many ways only blindly active : in
all the functions of our body which are not guided by

THE WORLD AS WILL 79

knowledge, in all its vital and vegetative processes, digestion,
circulation, secretion, grovi^th, reproduction. Not only the
actions of the body, but the whole body itself is, as we
have shown above, phenomenon of the will, objectified will,
concrete will. All that goes on in it must therefore proceed
through will, although here this will is not guided by
knowledge, but acts blindly according to causes, which in
this case are called stimuli.

I call a cause, in the narrowest sense of the word, that
state of matter, which, while it introduces another state
with necessity, yet suffers just as great a change itself as
that which it causes; which is expressed in the rule, "action
and reaction are equal." Further, in the case of what is
properly speaking a cause, the effect increases directly in pro-
portion to the cause, and therefore also the reaction. So
that, if once the mode of operation be known, the degree
of the eFect may be measured and calculated from the
degree of the intensity of the cause; and conversely the
degree of the intensity of the cause may be calculated from
the degree of the effect. Such causes, properly so called,
operate in all the phenomena of mechanics, chemistry, and
so forth; in short, in all the changes of unorganised bodies.
On the other hand, I call a stimulus^ such a cause as sustain?
no reaction proportional to its effect, and the intensity of
which does not vary directly in proportion to the intensity o£
its effect, so that the effect cannot be measured by it. On
the contrary, a small increase of the stimulus may cause
a very great increase of the effect, or conversely, it may
eliminate the previous effect altogether, and so forth. All
effects upon organised bodies as such are of this kind. All
properly organic and vegetative changes of the animal body
must therefore be referred to stimuli, not to mere causes.
But the stimulus, like every cause and motive generally,
never determines more than the point of time and space at
which the manifestation of every force is to take plare.

Bo THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

and does not determine the inner nature of the force
Itself which is manifested. This inner nature we know,
from our previous investigation, is will, to which there-
fore we ascribe both the unconscious and the conscious
changes of the body. The stimulus holds the mean, forms
the transition between the motive, which is causality ac-
companied throughout by knowledge, and the cause in the
narrowest sense. In particular cases, it is sometimes nearer
a motive, sometimes nearer a cause, but yet it can always
be distinguished from both. Thus, for example, the rising
of the sap in a plant follows upon stimuli, and cannot be
explained f/om mere causes, according to the laws of
hydraulics or capillary attraction; yet it is certainly assisted
by these, and altogether approaches very near to a purely
'jCausal change. On the other hand, the movements of the
Hedysarum gyrans and the Mimosa -pudicay although still
following upon mere stimuli, are yet very like movements
which follow upon motives, and seem almost to wish to
make the transition. The contraction of the pupils of the
eyes as the light is increased is due to stimuli, but it passes
into movement which is due to motive; for it takes place,
because too strong lights would affect the retina painfully,
and to avoid this we contract the pupils. The occasion of an
erection is a motive, because it is an idea, yet it operates
with the necessity of a stimulus, /.<?., it cannot be resisted,
but we must put the idea away in order to make it cease
to affect us. This is also the case with disgusting things,
which excite the desire to vomit. Thus we have treated the
instinct of animals as an actual link, of quite a distinct
kind, between movement following upon stimuli and action
following upon a known motive. Now we might be asked
to regard breathing as another link of this kind. It ha? been
disputed whether it belongs to the voluntary or the in-
voluntary movements, that is to say, whether it follows upon
motive or stimulus, and perhaps it may be explained as some*

THE WORLD AS WILL 8r

Ming which is between the two. Marshall Hall ("On the
Diseases of the Nervous System," § 293 sq.) explains it ai
a mixed function, for it is partly under the influence of tha
cerebral (voluntary) and partly under that of the spinal
(non-voluntary) nerves. However, we are finally obliged
to number it with the expressions of will which result from
motives. For other motives, i.e., mere ideas, can determine
the will to check it or accelerate it, and, as is the case with
every other voluntary action, it seems to us that we could
give up breathing altogether and voluntarily suifocate. And
in fact we could do so if any other motive influenced the
will suflficiently strong to overcome the pressing desire foi
air. According to some accounts Diogenes actually put an
end to his life in this way. Certain negroes also are said to
have done this. If this be true, it affords us a good example
of the influence of abstract motives, i.e., of the victory of
distinctively rational over merely animal will. For, that
breathing is at least partially conditioned by cerebral activity
is shown by the fact that the primary cause of death from
prussic acid is that it paralyses the brain, and so, indirectly,
restricts the breathing; but if the breathing be artificially
maintained till the stupefaction of the brain has passed away,
death will not ensue. We may also observe in passing that
breathing afi"ords us the most obvious example of the fact
that motives act with just as much necessity as stimuli, or as
causes in the narrowest sense of the word, and their opera-
tion can only be neutralised by antagonistic motives, a-s
action is neutralised by reaction. For, in the case of
breathing, the illusion that we can stop when we like i?
much weaker than in the case of other movements which
follow upon motives; because in breathing the motive is
very powerful, very near to us, and its satisfaction is very
easy, for the muscles which accomplish it are never tired,
nothing, as a rule, obstructs it, and the whole process is sup-
ported by the most inveterate habit of the individual. And

S2 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

yet all motives act with the same necessity. The knowledge
that necessity is common to movements following upon
motives, and those following upon stimuli, makes it easier
for us to understand that that also which takes place in our
bodily organism in accordance with stimuli and in obedience
to law, is yet, according to its inner nature — will, which in
all its manifestations, though never in itself, is subordinated
to the principle of sufficient reason, that is, to necessity.^
Accordingly, we shall not rest contented with recognising
that animals, both in their actions and also in their whole
existence, bodily structure and organisation, are manifesta-
tions of will; but we shall extend to plants also this im-
mediate knowledge of the essential nature of things which
is given to us alone. Now ail the movements of plants follow
upon stimuli; for the absence of knowledge, and the move-
ment following upon motives which is conditioned by
knowledge, constitutes the only essential difference between
animals and plants. Therefore, what appears for the idea aa
plant life, as mere vegetation, as blindly impelling force,
we shall claim, according to it? inner nature /or will, and
recognise it as just that which constitutes the basis of our
own phenomenal being, as it expresses itself in our actions^
and also in the whole existence of our body itself.

It only remains for us to take the final step, the extension
of our way of looking at things to all those forces which act
in nature in accordance with universal, unchangeable laws,
in conformity with v/hich the movements of all those bodies
take plftCe, which are wholly without organs, and have
therefore no susceptibility for stimuli, and have no knowl-
edge, which is the necessary condition of motives. Thus we
must also apply the key to the understanding of the inner
nature of things, which the immediate knowledge of our

1 This subject is fully worked out in my prize essay on the free-
(dom of the will, in which therefore (pp. 29-44 0^ the "Grundprobleme
der Ethik") the relation of cause. "Stimulus, and motive has als&
been fully explained

THE WORLD AS WILL 83

own existence alone can give us, to those phenomena of the
unorganised world which are most remote from us. And if
we consider them attentively, if we observe the strong and
unceasing impulse with which the waters hurry to the ocean,
the persistency with which the magnet turns ever to the
north pole, the readiness with which iron flies to the magnet,
the eagerness with which the electric poles seek to be re-
united, and which, just like human desire, is increased by
obstacles; if we see the crystal quickly and suddenly take
form with such wonderful regularity of construction, which
is clearly only ^ perfectly definite and accurately determined
impulse in different directions, seized and retained by
crystallisation; if we observe the choice with which bodies
repel and attract each other, combine and separate, when
they are set free in a fluid state, and emancipated from the
bonds of rigidness; lastly, if we feel directly how a burden
which hampers our body by its gravitation towards the earth,
unceasingly presses and strains upon it in pursuit of its one
tendency; if we observe all this, I say, it will require no
great effort of the imagination to recognise, even at so great
a distance, our own nature. That which in us pursues its end?
by the light of knowledge; but here, in the weakest of its
manifestations, only strives blindly and dumbly in a one-
sided and unchangeable manner, must yet in both cases come
under the name of will, as it is eveiywhere one and the same
— just as the first dim light of dawn must share the name of
sunlight with the rays of the full mid-day. For the name
will denotes that which is the inner nature of everything in
the world, and the one kernel of every phenomenon.

Yet the remoteness, and indeed the appearance of abso-
lute difference between the phenomena of unorganised na-
ture and the will which we know as the inner reality of our
own being arises chiefly from the contrast between the com-
pletely determined conformity to law of the one species of
phenomena, and the apparently unfettered freedom of the

84 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

other. For in man, individuality makes itself powerfully felt.
Every one has a character of his own; and therefore the
same motive has not the same influence over all, and a thou-
sand circumstances which exist in the wide sphere of the
knowledge of the individual, but are unknown to others,
modify its effect. Therefore action cannot be predetermined
from the motive alone, for the other factor is wanting, the
accurate acquaintance with the individual character, and
with the knowledge which accompanies it. On the other
hand, the phenomena of the forces of nature illustrate the
opposite extreme. They act according to universal laws, with-
out variation, without individuality in accordance with
openly manifest circumstances, subject to the most exact
predetermination; and the same force of nature appears in
its million phenomena in precisely the same way. In order to
explain this point and prove the identity of the one indivisible
will in all its different phenomena, in the weakest as in the
strongest, we must first of all consider the relation of the
will as thing-in-itself to its phenomena, that is, the relation
of the world as will to the world as idea; for this will open
to us the best way to a more thorough investigation of the
whole subject we are considering in this second book.

§ 24. We have learnt from the great Kant that time,
space, and causality, with their entire constitution, and the
possibility of all their forms, are present in our consciousness
quite independently of the objects which appear in them, and
which constitute their content; or, in other words, they can
be arrived at just as well if we start from the subject as if
we start from the object. Therefore, with equal accuracy,
we may call them either forms of intuition or perception of
the subject, or qualities of the object as object (with Kant,
phenomena), i.e.^ idea. We may also regard these forms as
the irreducible boundary between object and subject. All
objects must therefore exist in them, yet the subject, inde-
pendently of the phenomenal object, possesses and surveys

THE WORLD AS WlLh 8?

them completely. But if the objects appearing in these formi
are not to be empty phantoms, but are to have a meaning,
they must refer to something, must be the expression of
something which is not, like themselves, object, idea, a
merely relative existence for a subject, but which exists
without such dependence upon something which stands over
against it as a condition of its being, and independent of the
forms of such a thing, i.e., is not Ideay but a thing-in-hseif.
Consequently it may at least be asked: Are these ideas, these
objects, something more than or apart froni the fact that
they are ideas, objects of the subject? And what would they
be in this sense? What is that other side of them which is
toto genere different from idea? What is the thing-in-itself ?
The willy we have answered, but for the present I set that
answer aside.

Whatever the thing-in-itself may be, Kant is right in his
conclusion that time, space, and causality (which we after-
wards found to be forms of the principle of sufficient reason,
the general expression of the forms of the phenomenon) are
not its properties, but come to it only after, and so far as, it
has become idea. That is, they belong only to its phenomenal
existence, not to itself. For since the subject fully under-
stands and constructs them out of itself, independently of
all object, they must be dependent upon existence as idea as
such, not upon that which becomes idea. They must be the
form of the idea as such; but not qualities of that which has
assumed this form. They must be already given with the
mere antithesis of subject and object (not as concepts but as
facts), and consequently they must be only the more exact
determination of the form of knowledge in general, whose
most universal determination is that antithesis itself. Now,
that in the phenomenon, in the object, which is in its turn
conditioned by time, space and causality, inasmuch as it can
onlv become idea by means of them, namely multi'pltcity ^
through co-existence and succession, change .ind 'permanence

86 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

through the law of causality, matter which can only become
idea under the presupposition of causality, and lastly, all that
becomes idea only by means of these, — all this, I say, as a
whole, does not in reality belong to that which appears, to
that which has passed into the form of idea, but belongs
merely to this form itself. And conversely, that in the phe-
nomenon which is not conditioned through time, space and
causality, and whicli cannot be referred to them, nor ex-
plained in accordance with them, is precisely that in which
the thing manifested, the thing-in-itself, directly reveals it-
self. It follows from this that the most complete capacity
for being known, that is to say, the greatest clearness, dis-
tinctness, and susceptibility of exhaustive explanation, will
necessarily belong to that which pertains to knowledge as
suchy and thus to the form of knowledge; but not to that
which in itself is not idea, not object, but which has become
knowledge only through entering these forms; in other
words, has become idea, object. Thus only that which de-
pends entirely upon being an object of knowledge, upon
existing as idea in general and as such (not upon that which
becomes known, and has only become idea), which therefore
belongs without distinction to everything that is known, and
ivhich, on that account, is found just as well if we start
from the subject as if we start from the object, — this alone
can afford us without reserve a sufficient, exhaustive knowl-
edge, a knowledge which is clear to the very foundation.
But this consists of nothing but those forms of all phe-
nomena of which we are conscious a 'priori^ and which may
be generally expressed as the principle of sufficient reason.
Now, the forms of this principle which occur in knowledge
of perception (with which alone we are here concerned)
are time, space, and causality. The whole of pure mathe-
matics and pure natural science a 'priori is based entirely
upon these. Therefore it is only in these sciences that knowl-
edge finds no obscurity, does not rest upon what is incompre-

THE WORLD AS WILL 87

hensible (groundless, i.e.y will), upon what cannot be fur-
ther deduced. It is on this account that Kant wanted, as we
have said, to apply the name science specially and even ex-
clusively to these branches of knowledge together with logic.
But, on the other hand, these branches of knowledge show
us nothing more than mere connections, relations of one
idea to another, form devoid of all content. All content
which they receive, every phenomenon which fills these
forms, contains something which is no longer completely
knowable in its whole nature, something which can no
longei be entirely explained through something else, some-
thing then which is groundless, through which consequently
the knowledge loses its evidence and ceases to be completely
lucid. This that withholds itself from investigation, how-,
ever, is the thing-in-itself, is that which is essentially not
idea, not object of knowledge, but has only become knowable
by entering that form. The form is originally foreign to it,
and the thing-in-itself can never become entirely one with
it, can never be referred to mere form, and, since this form
is the principle of sufficient reason, can never be completely
explained. If therefore all mathematics affords us an ex-
haustive knowledge of that which in the phenomena is
quantity, position, number, in a word, spatial and temporal
relations; if all etiology gives us a complete account of the
regular conditions under which phenomena, with all their
determinations, appear in time and space, but, with it all,
teaches us nothing more than why in each case this particular
phenomena must appear just at this time here, and at this
place now; it is clear that with their assistance we can nevef
penetrate to the inner nature of things. There always re*
mains something which no explanation can venture to attack,
but which it always presupposes; the forces of nature, thtf
definite mode of operation of things, the quality and char*
acter of every phenomenon, that which is without ground,
that which doe« not depend upop the form of the phe*

S8 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

nomenal, the principle of sufficient reason, but is something
to which this form in itself is foreign, something which has
^et entered this form, and now appears according to its law,
a law, however, which only determ.ines the appearance, not
that which appears, only the how, not the what, only the
form, not the content. Mechanics, physics, and chemistry
teach the rules and laws according to which the forces of
impenetrability, gravitation, rigidity, fluidity, cohesion, elas-
ticity, heat, light, affinity, magnetism, electric'ty, &c., oper-
ate; that is to say, the law, the rule which these forces
observe whenever they enter time and space. But do what we
ivill,^ the forces themselves remain qualitates occultce. For
It is just the thing-in-itself, which, because it is manifested,
exhibits these phenomena, which are entirely different from
itself. In its manifestation, indeed, it is completely subordi-
nated to the principle of sufficient reason as the form of the
idea, but it can never itself be referred to this form, and
therefore cannot be fully explained etiologically, can never
be completely fathomed. It is certainly perfectly compre-
hensible so far as it has assumed that form, that is, so far
as It is phenomenon, but its inner nature is not in the least
explained by the fact that it can thus be comprehended.
Therefore the more necessity any knowledge carries with it,
the more there is in it of that which cannot be otherwise
thought or presented in perception — as, for example, space-
relations — the clearer and more sufficing then it is, the less
pure objective content it has, or the less reality, properly so
called, is given in it. And conversely, the more there is in it
which must be conceived as mere chance, and the more it
impresses us as gw^n merely empirically, the more proper
objectivity and true reality is there in such knowledge, and
*t the same time, the more that is inexplicable, that is, that
jannot be deduced from anything else.

It is true that at all times an etiology, unmindful of its
leal aim, has striven to reduce all organised life to chemism

THE Vv^ORLD AS WILL 89

^r. electricity; all chemism, that is to say, quality again to
mechanism (action determined by the shape of the atom),
this again sometimes to the object of phoronomy, ..., the
combination of time and space, which makes motion possible,
sometimes to the object of mere geometry ...., position m
space (much in the same way as we rightly deduce the
diminution of an effect from the square of the distance, and
the theory of the lever in a purely geometrical manner):
geometry may finally be reduced to arithmetic, which, on
account of its one dimension, is of all the forms of the
principle of sufficient reason, the most intelligible, compre-
hensible, and completely susceptible of investigation. As in«
stances of the method generally indicated here, we may refef
to the atoms of Democritus, the vortex of Descartes the
mechanical physics of Lesage, which towards the end of last
century tried to explain both chemical affinities and gravita-
tion mechanically by impact and pressure, as may be seen m
detail in ''Lucrece Neutonlen''; ReiFs form and combina-
tion as the cause of animal life, also tends in this direction.
Finally, the crude materialism which even now in the mid-
dle of the nineteenth century has been served up again
under the ignorant delusion that it is original, belongs dis-
tinctly to this class. It stupidly denies vital force, and hrst
of all tries to explain the phenomena of life from physica
and chemical forces, and those again from the mechanical
effects of the matter, position, form, and motion of im-
agined atoms, and thus seeks to reduce all the forces of
nature to action and reaction as its thing-in-itself. We shall
soon have to speak again of this false reduction of the
forces of nature to each other; so much for the present.
Supposing this theory were possible, all would certainly be
explained and established and finally reduced to an anth-
1 ictical problem, which would then be the holiest thing in
the temple of wisdom, to which the principle of sufficient
reason would at last have happily conducted us. But all con-

90 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

tent of the phenomenon would have disappeared, and the
mere form would remain. The "what appears" would be
referred to the "how it appears," and this "how" would be
what is a priori knowable, therefore entirely dependent on
the subject, therefore only for the subject, therefore, lastly,
mere phantom, idea and form of idea, through and through:
no thing-in-itself could be demanded. Supposing, then, that
this were possible, the whole world would be derived from
the subject, and, in fact, that would be accomplished which
Fichte wanted to seem to accomplish by his empty bombast.
But it is not possible: phantasies, sophisms, castles in the air,
have been constructed in this way, but science never. The
many and multifarious phenomena in nature have been suc-
cessfully referred to particular original forces, and as often
as this has been done, a real advance has been made. Several
forces and qualities, which were at first regarded as different,
have been derived from each other, and thus their number
has been curtailed. (For example, magnetism from elec-
tricity.) Etiology will have reached its goal when it has
recognised and exhibited as such all the original forces of
nature, and established their mode of operation, i.e.y the
law according to which, under the guidance of causality,
their phenomena appear in time and space, and determine
their position with regard to each other. But certain original
forces will always remain over; there will always remain
as an insoluble residuum a content of phenomena which
cannot be referred to their form, and thus cannot be ex-
plained from something else in accordance with the prin-
ciple of suflBcient reason. For in everything in nature there
is something of which no ground can ever be assigned, of
which no explanation is possible, and no ulterior cause is to
be sought. This is the specific nature of its action, i,e.y the
nature of its existence, its being. Of each particular effect
of the thing a cause may be certainly indicated, from which
it follows that it must act just at this time and in this place;

THE WORLD AS WILL 91

but. no cause can ever be found from which it follows that a
thing acts in general, and precisely in the way it does. If it
has no other qualities, if it is merely a mote in a sunbeam,
it yet exhibits this unfathomable something, at least as weight
and impenetrability. But this, I say, is to the mote what his
will is to a man; and, like the human will, it is, according to
its inner nature, not subject to explanation; nay, more — it
is in itself identical with this will. It is true that a motive
may be given for every /nanifestation of will, for every act
of will at a particular time and in a particular place, upon
which it must necessarily follow, under the presupposition
of the character of the man. But no reason can ever be given
that the man has this character; that he wills at all; that,
of several motives, just this one and no other, or indeed that
any motive at all, moves his will. That which in the case of
man is the unfathomable character which is presupposed in
every explanation of his actions from motives is, in the case
of every unorganised body, its definitive quality — the mode
of its action, the manifestations of which are occasioned by
impressions from without, while it itself, on the contrary,
is determined by nothing outside itself, and thus is also in-
explicable. Its particular manifestations, through which
alone it becomes visible, are subordinated to the principle
of sufficient reason; it itself is groundless.

It is a greater and a commoner error that the phenomena
which we best understand are those which are of most fre-
quent occurrence, and which are most universal and simple;
for, on the contrary, these are just the phenomena that we
are most accustomed to see about us, and to be ignorant of.
It is just as inexplicable to us that a stone should fall to the
earth as that an animal should move itself. It has been sup-
posed, as we have remarked above, that, starting from the
most universal forces of nature (gravitation, cohesion, im-
penetrability), it was possible to explain from them the larer
forces, which only operate under a combination of circum-

^2 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

Itances (for example, chemical quality, electricity, magnet-
ism), and, lastly, from these to understand the organism
and the life of animals, and even the nature of human
knowing and willing. Men resigned themselves without a
word to starting from mere qualitates occultcBy the elucida-
tion of which was entirely given up, for they intended to
build upon them, not to investigate them. Such an intention
cannot, as we have already said, be carried out. But apart
from this, such structures would always stand in the air.
What is the use of explanations which ultimately refer us
to something which is quite as unknown as the problem with
which we started? Do we in the end understand more of
the inner nature of these universal natural forces than of
the inner nature of an animal? Is not the one as much a
sealed book to us as the other? Unfathomable because it is
without ground, because it is the content, that which the
phenomenon is, and which can never be referred to the
form, to the how, to the principle of sufficient reason. But
we, who have in view not etiology but philosophy, that is,
not relative but unconditioned knowledge of the real nature
of the world, take the opposite course, and start from that
which is immediately and most completely known to us, and
fully and entirely trusted by us — that which lies nearest to
us, in order to understand that which is known to us only
at a distance, one-sidedly and indirectly. From the most
powerful, most significant, and most distinct phenomenon
we seek to arrive at an understanding of those that are less
complete and weaker. With the exception of my own body,
all things are known to me only on one side, that of the
idea. Their inner nature remains hidden from me and a pro-
found secret, even if I know all the causes from which
their changes follow. Only by comparison with that which
goes on in me if my body performs an action when I am
influenced by a motive — only by comparison, I say, with
what is the inner nature of my own changes determined by

THE WORLD AS WILL 93

external reasons, can I obtain insight into the way in which
these lifeless bodies change under the influence of causes,
and so understand what is their inner nature. For the knowl-
edge of the causes of the manifestation of this inner nature
affords me merely the rule of its appearance in time and
space, and nothing more. I can make this comparison because
my body is the only object of which I know not merely the
one side, that of the idea, but also the other side which is
called will. Thus, instead of believing that I would better
understand my own organisation, and then my own knowing
and willing, and my movements following upon motives, if
I could only refer them to movements due to electrical,
chemical, and mechanical causes, T must, seeing that I seek
philosophy and not etiology, learn to understand from my
own movements following upon motives the inner nature
of the simplest and commonest movements of an unor-
ganised body which I see following upon causes. I must
recognise the inscrutable forces which manifest themselves
in all natural bodies as identical in kind with that which in
me is the will, and as differing from it only in degree. That
is to say, the fourth class of ideas given in the Essay on the
Principle of Sufficient Reason must be the key to the knowl-
edge of the inner nature of the first class, and by means of
the law of motivation I must come to understand the inner
meaning of the law of causation.

Spinoza (Epist. 62) says that if a stone which has been
projected through the air had consciousness, it would believe
that it was moving of its own will. I add to this only that
the stone would be right. The impulse given it is for the
stone what the motive is for me, and what in the case of
the stone appears as cohesion, gravitation, rigidity, is in its
inner nature the same as that which I recognise in myself
as will, and what the stone also, if knowledge were given to
it, would recognise as will. In the passage referred to,
Spinoza had in view the necessity with which the stone flies.

94 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

and he rightly desires to transfer this necessity to that of
the parn'jular act of will of a person. I, on the other hand,
consider the inner being, which alone imparts meaning and
validity to all real necessity (i.e., effect following upon a
caus'.*) as its presupposition. In the case of men this is called
chr.racter; in the case of a stone it is called quality, but it is
t/ie same in both. When it is immediately known it is called
will. In the stone it has the weakest, and in man the strong-
est degree of visibility, of objectivity.

§ 26. The lowest grades of the objectifi cation of will are
to be found in those most universal forces of nature which
partly appear in all matter without exception, as gravity
and impenetrability, and partly have shared the given matter
among them, sc that certain of them reign in one species
of matter and others in another species, constituting its
specific difference, as rigidity, fluidity, elasticity, electricity,
magnetism, chemical properties and qualities of every kind.
Tliey are in themselves immediate manifestations of will,
just as much as human action ; and as such they are ground-
less, like human character. Only their particular manifesta-
tions are subordinated to the principle of sufficient reason,
like the particular actions of men. They themselves, on the
other hand, can never be called either effect or cause, but are
the prior and presupposed conditions of all causes and effects
through which their real nature unfolds and reveals itself.
It is therefore senseless to demand a cause of gravity or elec-
tricity, for they are original forces. Their expressions, in-
deed, take place in accordance with the law of cause and
effect, so that every one of their particular manifestations
has a cause, which is itself again just a similar particular
manifestation which determines that this force must express
itself here, must appear in space and time; but the force
itself is by no means the effect of a cause, nor the cause of
an effect. It is therefore a mistake to say "gravity is the
cause of a stone falling" ; for the cause in this case is rather

THE WORLD AS WILL 95

the nearness of the earth, because it attracts the stone. Take
the earth away and the stone will not fall, although gravity
remains. The force itself lies quite outside the chain of
causes and effects, which presupposes time, because it only
has meaning in relation to it; but the force lies outside time.
The individual change always has for its cause another
change just as individual as itself, and not the force of
which it is the expression. For that which always gives its
efficiency to a cause, however many times it may appear, is
a force of nature. As such, it is groundless, i.e., it lies out-
side the chain of causes and outside the province of the
principle of sufficient reason in general, and is philosophically
known as the immediate objectivity of will, which is the
"in-itself" of the whole of nature; but in etiology, which
in this reference is physics, it is set down as an original force,
i.e., a qualhas occulta.

In the higher grades of the objectivity of will we see
individuality occupy a prominent position, especially in the
case of man, where it appears as the great difference of indi-
vidual characters, i.e., as complete personality, outwardly
expressed in strongly marked individual physiognomy, which
influences the whole bodily form. None of the brutes have
this individuality in anything like so high a degree, though
the higher species of them have a trace of it; but the char-
acter of the species completely predominates over it, and
therefore they have little individual physiognomy. The
farther down we go, the more completely is every trace of
the individual character lost in the common character of
the species, and the physiognomy of the species alone re-
mains. We know the physiological character of the species,
and from that we know exactly what is to be expected from
the individual; while, on the contrary, in the human species
every individual has to be studied and fathomed for himself,
which, if we wish to forecast his action with some degree
of certainty, is, on account of the possibility of concealment

96 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER.

that first appears with reason, a matter of the greatest diffi-
culty. It is probably connected with this difference of the
human species from all others, that the folds and convolu-
tions of the brain, which are entirely wanting in birds, and
very weakly marked in rodents, are even in the case of the
higher animals far more symmetrical on both sides, and
more constantly the same in each individual, than in the case
of human beings.^ It is further to be regarded as a phe-
nomenon of this peculiar individual character which dis-
tinguishes men from all the lower animals, that in the case
of the brutes the sexual instinct seeks its satisfaction with-
out observable choice of objects, while in the case of man
this choice is, in a purely mstmctive manner and independ-
ent of all reflection, carried so far that it rises into a power-
ful passion. While then every man is to be regarded as a
specially determined and characterised phenomenon of will,
and indeed to a certain extent as a special Idea, in the case
of the brutes this individual character a.u a whole is wanting,
because only the species has a special significance. And the
farther we go from man, the fainter becomes the trace of
this individual character, so that plants have no individual
qualities left, except such as may be fully explained from
the favourable or unfavourable external influences of soil,
climate, and other accidents. Finally, in the inorganic king-
dom of nature all individuality disappears. The crystal alone
is to be regarded as to a certain extent individual. It is a unity
of the tendency in definite directions, fixed by crystallisation,
which makes the trace of this tendency permanent. It is at
the same time a cumulative repetition of its primitive form,
bound into unity by an idea, just as the tree is an aggregate
of the single germinating fibre which shows itself in every
rib of the leaves, in every leaf, in every branch; which

1 Wenzel, De Structura Cerebri Hominis et Brutorum, 1812, ch.
Ai. ; Cuvier, Le(;ons d'Anat., comp. legon 9, arts. 4 and 5; Vic
il'Azyr, Hist, de I'Acad. de Sc. de Paris, 1783, pp^ 470 and 483.

THE WORLD AS WILL 97

/cpeats itself, and to some extent makes each of these appear
as a separate growth, nourishing itself from the greater as a
parasite, so that the tree, resembling the crystal, is a sys-
tematic aggregate of small plants, although only the whole
is the complete expression of an individual Idea, /.<?., of this
particular grade of the objectiiication of will. But the indi-
viduals of the same species of crystal can have no other
difference than such as is produced by external accidents;
indeed we can make at pleasure large or small crystals ol
every species. The individual, however, as such, that is, with
traces of an individual character, does not exist further in
unorganised nature. All its phenomena are expressions of
general forces of nature, i.e., of those grades of the objec-
tification of will which do not objectify themselves (as is
the case in organised nature), by means of the difference of
the individualities which collectively express the whole of
the Idea, but show themselves only in the species, and as a
whole, without any variation in each particular example of
it. Time, space, multiplicity, and existence conditioned by
causes, do not belong to the will or to the Idea (the grade of
the objectiiication of will), but only to their particular
phenomena. Therefore such a force of nature as, for ex-
ample, gravity or electricity, must show itself as such iri
precisely the same way in all its million phenomena, and
only external circumstances can modify these. This unity
of its being in all its phenomena, this unchangeable con-
stancy of the appearance of these, whenever, under the
guidance of causality, the necessary conditions are present,
is called a law of nature. If such a law is once learned from
experience, then the phenomenon of that force of nature,
the character of which is expressed and laid down in it, may
be accurately forecast and counted upon. But it is just this
conformity to law of the phenomena of the lower grade*
of the objectiiication of will which gives them such a dif^*
ferent aspect from the phenomena of the same will in th^

98 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER '

higher, t.e.^ the more distinct, grades of its objectification,
in animals, and in men and their actions, where the stronger
or weaker influence of the individual character and the
susceptibility to motives which often remain hidden from
the spectator, because they lie in knowledge, has had the
result that the identity of the inner nature of the two kinds
of phenomena has hitherto been entirely overlooked.

If we start from the knowledge of the particular, and not
from that of the Idea, there is something astonishing, and
sometimes even terrible, in the absolute uniformity of the
laws of nature. It might astonish us that nature never once
forgets her laws; that if, for example, it has once been
according to a law of nature that where certain materials
are brought together under given conditions, a chemical
combination will take place, or gas will be evolved, or they
will go on fire; if these conditions are fulfilled, whether
by our interposition or entirely by chance (and in this case
the accuracy is the more astonishing because unexpected),
to-day just as well as a thousand years ago, the determined
phenomenon will take place at once and without delay. We
are most vividly impressed with the marvellousness of this
fact in the case of rare phenomena, which only occur under
very complex circumstances, but which we are previously
informed will take place if these conditions are fulfilled.
For example, when we are told that if certain metals, when
arranged alternately in fluid with which an acid has been
mixed, are brought into contact, silver leaf brought between
the extremities of this combination will suddenly be con-
sumed in a green flame; or that under certain conditions the
hard diamond turns into carbonic acid. It is the ghostly
omnipresence of natural forces that astonishes us in such
cases, and we remark here what in the case of phenomena
which happen daily no longer strikes us, how the connection
between cause and effect is really as mysterious as that
which is imagined between a magic formula <ind a spirit

THE WORLD AS WILL 99

that must appear when invoked by it. On the other hand, if
We have attained to the philosophical knowledge that a force
of nature is a definite grade of the objectification of will,
that is to say, a definite grade of that which we recognise
as our own inmost nature, and that this will, in itself, and
distinguished from its phenomena and their forms, lies
outside time and space, and that, therefore, the multiplicity,
which is conditioned by time and space, does not belong to
it, nor directly to the grade of its objectification, i.e.y the
Idea, but only to the phenomena of the Idea; and if we
remember that the law of causality has significance only in
relation to time and space, inasmuch aj it determines the
position of the multitude of phenomena of the different
Ideas in which the will reveals itself, governing the order
in which they must appear; if, I say, in this knowledge the
inner meaning of the great doctrine of Kant has been fully
grasped, the doctrine that time, space, and causality do not
belong to the thing-in-itself, but merely to the phenomenon,
that they are only the forms of our knowledge, not qualities
of things in themselves; then we shall understand that this
astonishment at the conformity to law and accurate opera-
tion of a force of nature, this astonishment at the complete
sameness of all its million phenomena and the infallibility
of their occurrence, is really like that of a child or a savage
who looks for the first time through a glass with many
facets at a flower, and marvels at the complete similarity
of the innumerable flowers which he sees, and counts the
leaves of each of them separately.

Thus every universal, original force of nature is nothing
but a low grade of the objectification of will, and we call
every such grade an eternal Idea in Plato's sense. But a law
of nature is the relation of the Idea to the form of its mani-
festation. This form is time, space, and causality, which are
necessarily and inseparably connected and related to each
other. Through time and space the Idea multiplies itself in

100 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

innumerable phenomena, but the order according to which
it enters these forms of multiplicity is definitely determined
by the law of causality; this law is as it were the norm of
the limit of these phenomena of different Ideas, in accord-
ance with which time, space, and matter are assigned to
ihem. This norm is therefore necessarily related to the
identity of the aggregate of existing matter, which is the
common substratum of all those different phenomena. If all
these were not directed to that common matter in the posses-
sion of which they must be divided, there would be no need
for such a law to decide their claims. They might all at once
and together fill a boundless space throughout an endless
time. Therefore, because all these phenomena of the eternal
Ideas are directed to one and the same matter, must there
be a rule for their appearance and disappearance; for if
there were not, they would not make way for each other.
Thus the law of causality is essentially bound up with that
of the permanence of substance; they reciprocally derive
significance from each other. Time and space, again, are
related to them in the same way. For time is merely the
possibility of conflicting states of the same matter, and space
is merely the possibility of the permanence of the same
matter under all sorts of conflicting states. Accordingly, in
the preceding book we explained matter as the union of
space and time, and this union shows itself as change of the
accidents in the permanence of the substance, of which
causality or becoming is the universal possibility. And ac-
cordingly, we said that matter is through and through
causality. We explained the understanding as the subjective
correlative of causality, and said matter (and thus the whole
world as idea) exists only for the understanding; the under-
standing is its condition, its supporter as its necessary correla-
tive. I repeat all this in passing, merely to call to mind what
was demonstrated in the First Book, for it is necessary for
the complete understanding of these two books that their

THE WORLD AS WILL loi

inner agreement should be observed, since what is inseparably
united in the actual world as its two sides, will and idea, has,
in order that we might understand each of them more clearly
in isolation, been dissevered in these two books.

In any case Malebranche is right: every natural cause is
only an occasional cause. It only gives opportunity or occa-
sion for the manifestation of the one indivisible will which
is the "in-itself" of all things, and whose graduated objecti-
fication is the whole visible world. Only the appearance, the
becoming visible, in this place, at this time, is brought about
by the cause and is so far dependent on it, but not the whole
of the phenomenon, nor its inner nature. This is the will
itself, to which the principle of sufficient reason has not
application, and which is therefore groundless. Nothing in
the world has a sufficient cause of its existence generally, but
only a cause of existence just here and just now. That a
stone exhibits now gravity, now rigidity, now electricity,
now chemical qualities, depends upon causes, upon impres-
sions upon it from without, and is to be explained from
these. But these qualities themselves, and thus the whole
inner nature of the stone which consists in them, and there-
fore manifests itself ki all the ways referred to; thus, in
general, that the stone is such as it is, that it exists generally
• — all this, I say, has no ground, but is the visible appearance
of the groundless will. Every cause is thus an occasional
cause. We have found it to be so in nature, which is without
knowledge, and it is also precisely the same when motives
and not causes or stimuli determine the point at which the
phenomena are to appear, that is to say, in the actions of
animals and human beings. For in both cases it is one and
the same will which appears; very different in the grades
of its manifestations, multiplied in the phenomena of these
grades, and, in respect of these, subordinated to the principle
of sufficient reason, but in itself free from all this. Motives
do not determine the character of man, but only the phe»

«02 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

nomena of his character, that is, his actions; the outward
fashion of his life, not its inner meaning and content. These
proceed from the character which is the immediate manifes-
tation of the will, and is therefore groundless. That one
man is bad and another good, does not depend upon motives
or outward influences, such as teaching and preaching, and
is in this sense quite inexplicable. But whether a bad man
shows his badness in petty acts of injustice, cowardly tricks,
and low knavery which he practises in the narrow sphere of
his circumstances, or whether as a conqueror he oppresses
nations, throws a world into lamentation, and sheds the
blood of millions; this is the outward form of his manifes-
tation, that which is unessential to it, and depends upon the
circumstances in which fate has placed him, upon his sur-
roundings, upon external influences, upon motives; but his
decision upon these motives can never be explained from
them; it proceeds from the will, of which this man is a
manifestation. Of this we shall speak in the Fourth Book.
The manner in which the character discloses its qualities is
quite analogous to the way in which those of every material
body in unconscious nature are disclosed. Water remains
water with its intrinsic qualities, whether as a still lake it
reflects its banks, or leaps in foam from the cliffs, or, arti-
ficially confined, spouts in a long jet into the air. All that
depends upon external causes; the one form is as natural
to it as the other, but it will always show the same form in
the same circumstances; it is equally ready for any, but in
every case true to its character, and at all times revealing
this alone. So will every human character under all circum-
stances reveal itself, but the phenomena which proceed
from it will always be in accordance with the circumstances.
§ 27. If, from the foregoing consideration of the forces
of nature and their phenomena, we have come to see clearly
how far an explanation from causes can go, and where it
piust stop if it is not to degenerate into the vain attempt to

THE WORLD AS WILL 103

reduce the content of all phenomena to their mere form,
in which case there would ultimately remain nothing but
form, we shall be able to settle in general terms what is to
be demanded of etiology as a whole. It must seek out the
causes of all phenomena in nature, i.e., the circumstances
under which they invariably appear. Then it must refer the
multitude of phenomena which have various forms in vari-
ous circumstances to what is active in every phenomenon,
and is presupposed in the cause, — original forces of nature.
It must correctly distinguish between a difference of the
phenomenon which arises from a difference of the force,
and one which results merely from a difference of th«.
circumstances und^-^r which the force expresses itself; and
with equal care it must guard against taking the expressions
of one and the same force under different circumstances
for the manifestations of different forces, and conversely
against taking for manifestations of one and the same force
what originally belongs to different forces. For physics
demands causes, and the will is never a cause. Its whole
relation to the phenomenon is not in accordance with the
principle of sufficient reason. But that which in itself is the
will exists in another aspect as idea; that is to say, is phe-
nomenon. As such, it obeys the laws which constitute the
form of the phenomenon. Every movement, for example,
although it is always a manifestation of will, must yet have
a cause from which it is to be explained in relation to a
particular time and space; that is, not in general in its inner
nature, but as a f articular phenomenon. In the case of the
stone, this is a mechanical cause; in that of the movement
of a man, it is a motive; but in no case can it be wanting.
On the other hand, the universal common nature of all
phenomena of one particular kind, that which must be
presupposed if the explanation from causes is to have any
sense and meaning, is the general force of nature, which,
in physics, must remain a qualitas occulta, because with it

104 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

the etiological explanation ends and the metaphysical begins.
But the chain of causes and effects is never broken by an
original force to which it has been necessary to appeal. It
does not run back to such a force as if it were its first link,
but the nearest link, as well as the remotest, presupposes the
original force, and could otherwise explain nothiiig. A series
of causes and effects may be the manifestation of the most
different kinds of forces, whose successive visible appear-
ances are conducted through it. But the difference of
these original forces, which cannot be referred to each other,
by no means breaks the unity of that chain of causes, and
the connection between all its links. The etiology and the
philosophy of nature never do violence to each other, but
go hand in hand, regarding the same object from different
points of view. Etiology gives an account of the causes
which necessarily produce the particular phenomenon to be
explained. It exhibits, as the foundation of all its explana-
tions, the universal forces which are active in all these causes
and effects. It accurately defines, enumerates, and distin-
guishes these forces, and then indicates all the different
effects in which each force appears, regulated by the differ-
ence of the circumstances, always in accordance with its own
peculiar character, which it discloses in obedience to an in-
Variable rule, called a law of nature. When all this has been
thoroughly accomplished by physics in every particular, it
K^ill be complete, and its work will be done. There will then
remain no unknown force in unorganised nature, nor any
effect, which has not been proved to be the manifestation of
one of these forces under definite circumstances, in accord-
ance with a law of nature. Yet a law of nature remains
merely the observed rule according to which nature invari-
ably proceeds whenever certain definite circumstances occur.
Therefore a law of nature may be defined as a fact expressed
generally — un fait generalise — and thus a complete enu-
meration of all the laws of nature would only be a complete

THE WORLD AS WILL 105

register of facts. The consideration of nature as a whole is
thus completed in morfhology, which enumerates, com-
pares, and arranges all the enduring forms of organised
nature. Of the causes of the appearance of the individual
creature it has little to say, for in all cases this is procreation
(the theory of which is a separate matter), and in rare cases
the generatio CEqutvoca. But to this last belongs, strictly
speaking, the manner in which all the lower grades of the
objectification of will, that is to say, physical and chemical
phenomena, appear as individual, and it is precisely the task
of etiology to point out the conditions of this appearance.
Philosophy, on the other hand, concerns itself only with the
universal, in nature as everywhere else. The original force?
themselves are here its object, and it recognises in them the
different grades of the objectivity of will, which is the inner
nature, the "in-itself" of this world; and when it regards
the world apart from will, it explains it as merely the idea
of the subject. But if etiology, instead of preparing the way
for philosophy, and supplying its doctrines with practical
application by means of instances, supposes that its aim is
rather to deny the existence of all original forces, excepf
perhaps oncy the most general, for example, impenetrability,
which it imagines it thoroughly understands, and consev
quently seeks forcibly to refer all the others to it — it for-
sakes its own province and can only give us error instead
of truth. The content of nature is supplanted by its form,
ever}'thing is ascribed to the circumstances which work from
without, and nothing to the inner nature of the thing. Now
if it were possible to succeed by this method, a problem w
arithmetic would ultimately, as we have already remarked,
solve the riddle of the universe. But this is the method
adopted by those, referred to above, who think that all
physiological effects ought to be reduced to form and com-
bination, this, perhaps, to electricity, and this again to
chemism, and chemism to mechanism. The mistake of

io6 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

Descartes, for example, and of all the Atomists, was of this
last description. They referred the movements of the globe
to the impact of a fluid, and the qualities of matter to the
connection and form of the atoms, and hence they laboured
to explain all the phenomena of nature as merely manifesta-
tions of impenetrability and cohesion. Although this has
been given up, precisely the same error is committed in our
own day by the electrical, chemical, and mechanical physi-
ologists, who obstinately attempt to explain the whole of life
and all the functions of the organism from "form and
combination." In Meckel's "Archiv fiir Physiologie" (1820,
vol. V, p. 185) we still find it stated that the aim of
physiological explanation is the reduction of organic life to
the universal forces with which physics deals. Lamarck also,
in his ^^Philosofhie Zoologtquey* explains life as merely the
effect of warmth and electricity: le calorique et la mattere
electr'tque suffisent farfaitement four comfoser ensemble
cette cause essentielle de la vie (p. 16). According to this,
warmth and electricity would be the "thing-in-itself," and
the world of animals and plants its phenomenal appearance.
The absurdity of this opinion becomes glaringly apparent
at the 306th and following pages of that work. It is well
known that all these opinions, that have been so often re-
futed, have reappeared quite recently with renewed confi-
dence. If we carefully examine the foundation of these
views, we shall find that they ultimately involve the pre-
supposition that the organism is merely an aggregate of
phenomena of physical, chemical, and mechanical forces,
which have come together here by chance, and produced the
organism as a freak of nature without further significance.
The organism of an animal or of a human being would
therefore be, if considered philosophically, not the exhibition
of a special Idea, that is, not itself immediate objectivity
of the will at a definite higher grade, but in it would appear
only those Ideas which objectify the will in electricity, in

THE WORLD AS WILL 107

chemism, and in mechanism. Thus the organism would be
as fortuitously constructed by the concurrence of these
forces as the forms of men and beasts in clouds and stalac-
tites, and would therefore in itself be no more interesting
than they are. However, we shall see immediately how far
the application of physical and chemical modes of explana-
tion to the organism may yet, within certain limits, be allow-
able and useful; for I shall explain that the vital force
certainly avails itself of and uses the forces of unorganised
nature; yet these forces no more constitute the vital force
than a hammer and anvil make a blacksmith. Therefore
even the most simple example of plant life can never be
explained from these forces by any theory of capillary attrac-
tion and endosmose, much less animal life. The following
observations will prepare the way for this somewhat difficult
discussion.

It follows from all that has been said that it is certainly
an error on the part of natural science to seek to refer the
higher grades of the objectification of will to the lower;
for the failure to recognise, or the denial of, original and
self-existirg forces of nature is just as wrong as the ground-
less assumption of special forces when what occurs is merely
a peculiar kind of manifestation of what is already known.
Thus Kant rightly says that it would be absurd to hope for a
blade of grass from a Newton, that is, from one who re-
duced the blade of grass to the manifestations of physical
and chemical forces, of which it was the chance product,
and therefore a mere freak of nature, in which no special
Idea appeared, i.e., the will did not directly reveal itself in
it in a higher and specific grade, but just as in the phe^-
nomena of unorganised nature and by chance in this form.
The schoolmen, who certainly would not have allowed such
a doctrine, would rightly have said that it was a complete
denial of the forma substantialis, and a degradation of it
to the forma accidentalis. For the form^ substantialis of

io8 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

Aristotle denotes exactly what I call the grade of the objecti-
fication of will in a thing. On the other hand, it is not to be
overlooked that in all Ideas, that is, in all forces of un-
organised, and all forms of organised nature, it is one and
the same will that reveals itself, that is to say, which enters
the form of the idea and passes into objectivity. Its unity
must therefore be also recognisable through an inner rela-
tionship between all its phenomena. Now this reveals itself
in the higher grades of the objectification of will, where
the whole phenomenon is more distinct, thus in the vegetable
and animal kingdoms, through the universally prevailing
analogy of all forms, the fundamental type which recurs in
all phenomena. This has, therefore, become the guiding
principle of the admirable zoological system which was
originated by the French in this century, and it is most com-
pletely established in comparative anatomy as Vunite de fian^
Puniformite de Velement anatomique. To discover this
fundamental type has been the chief concern, or at any rate
the praiseworthy endeavour, of the natural philosophers of
the school of Schelling, who have in this respect considerable
merit, although in many cases their hunt after analogies in
nature degenerated into mere conceits. They have, however,
rightly shown that that general relationship and family like-
ness exists also in the ideas of unorganised nature; for ex-
ample, between electricity and magnetism, the identity of
which was afterwards established; between chemical attrac-
tion and gravitation, and so forth. They specially called
attention to the fact that 'polarity y that is, the sundering of
a force into two qualitatively different and opposed activities
striving after reunion, which also shows itself for the most
part in space as a dispersion in opposite directions, is a funda-
mental type of almost all the phenomena of nature, from
the magnet and the crystal to man himself. Yet this knowl-
edge has been current in China from the earliest times, in
the doctrine of opposition of Yin and Yang. Indeed, since

THE WORLD AS WILL log

all things in the world are the objectiiication of one and
the same will, and therefore in their inner nature identical,
it must not only be the case that there is that unmistakable
analogy between them, and that in every phenomenon the
trace, intimation, and plan of the higher phenomenon that
lies next to it in point of development shows itself, but also
because all these forms belong to the world as idea, it is
indeed conceivable that even in the most universal forms of
the idea, in that peculiar framework of the phenomenal
world, space and time, it may be possible to discern and
establish the fundamental type, intimation, and plan of what
fills the forms. It seems to have been a dim notion of this
that was the origin of the Cabala and all the mathematical
philosophy of the Pythagoreans, and also of the Chinese in
Y-King. In the school of Schelling also, to which we have
already referred, we find, among their efforts to bring to
light the similarity among the phenomena of nature, several
attempts (though rather unfortunate ones) to deduce laws
of nature from the laws of pure space and time. However,
one can never tell to what extent a man of genius will realise
both endeavours.

Now, although the difference between phenomenon and
thing-in-itself is never lost sight of, and therefore the
identity of the will which objectifies itself in all Ideas can
never (because it has different grades of its objectification)
be distorted to mean identity of the particular Ideas them-
selves in which it appears, so that, for example, chemical or
electrical attraction can never be reduced to the attraction
of gravitation, although this inner analogy is known, and
the former may be regarded as, so to speak, higher powers of
the latter, just as little does the similarly of the construction
of all animals warrant us in mixing and identifying the
species and explaining the more developed as mere variations
of the less developed; and although, finally, the physiological
functions are never to be reduced to chemical or physica)

no THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

processes, yet, in justification of this procedure, within cer-»
tain limits, we may accept the following observations as
highly probable.

If several of the phenomena of will in the lower grades
of its objectification — that is, in unorganised nature — come
into conflict because each of them, under the guidance of
causality, seeks to possess a given portion of matter, there
arises from the conflict the phenomenon of a higher Idea
which prevails over all the less developed phenomena pre-
viously there, yet in such a way that it allows the essence of
these to continue to exist in a subordinate manner, in that it
takes up into itself from them something which is analogous
to them. This process is only intelligible from the identity
of the will which manifests itself in all the Ideas, and which
is always striving after higher objectification. We thus see,
for example, in the hardening of the bones, an unmistakable
analogy to crystallisation, as the force which originally had
possession of the chalk, although ossification is never to be
reduced to crystallisation. The analogy shows itself in a
weaker degree in the flesh becoming firm. The combination
of humours in the animal body and secretion are also
analogous to chemical combination and separation. Indeed,
the laws of chemistry are still strongly operative in this
case, but subordinated, very much modified, and mastered by
a higher Idea; therefore mere chemical forces outside the
organism will never afford us such humours; but the more
developed Idea resulting from this victory over several lower
Ideas or objectifications of will, gains an entirely new char-
acter by taking up into itself from every Idea over which it
has prevailed a strengthened analogy. The will objectifies
itself in a new, more distinct way. It originally appears in
generatio cequivoca; afterwards in assimilation to the given
germ, organic moisture, plant, animal, man. Thus from the
strife of lower phenomena the higher arise, swallowing them
^11 up, but yet realising in the higher grade the tendency of

THE WORLD AS WILL iii

all the lower. Here, then, already the law applies — Serfens
nisi serfentem comederit non jit draco.

According to the view I have expressed, the traces of
chemical and physical modes of operation will indeed be
found in the organism, but it can never be explained from
them; because it is by no means a phenomenon even acci-
dentally brought about through the united actions of such
forces, but a higher Idea which has overcome these lower
Ideas by subduing assimilation; for the one will which ob-
jectifies itself in all Ideas always seeks the highest possible
objectification, and has therefore in this case given up the
lower grades of its manifestation after a conflict, in order
to appear in a higher grade, and one so much the more
powerful. No victory without conflict: since the higher Idea
or objectification of will can only appear through the con-
quest of the lower, it endures the opposition of these lower
Ideas, which, although brought into subjection, still con-
stantly strive to obtain an independent and complete ex-
pression of their being. The magnet that has attracted a
piece of iron carries on a perpetual conflict with gravitation,
which, as the lower objectification of will, has a prior right
to the matter of the iron; and in this constant battle the
magnet indeed grows stronger, for the opposition excites it,
as it were, to greater effort. In the same way every mani-
festation of the will, including that which expresses itself
in the human organism, wages a constant war against the
many physical and chemical forces which, as lower Ideas,
have a prior right to that matter. Thus the arm falls which
for a while, overcoming gravity, we have held stretched
out; thus the pleasing sensation of health, which proclaims
the victory of the Idea of the self-conscious organism over
the physical and chemical laws, which originally governed
the humours of the body, is so often interrupted, and is in-

1 "Unless the serpent eats a serpent, he Hoes not hecoro*; f
dragon."

Mi2 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

deed always accompanied by greater or less discomfort,
which arises from the resistance of these forces, and op
account of which the vegetative part of our life is con-
stantly attended by slight pain. Thus also digestion weaken?
all the animal functions, because it requires the whole vital
force to overcome the chemical forces of nature by assimila-
tion. Hence also in general the burden of physical life, the
necessity of sleep, and, finally, of death; for at last these
subdued forces of nature, assisted by circumstances, win
back from the organism, wearied even by the constant vic-
tory, the matter it took from them, and attain to an un-
impeded expression of their being. We may therefore say
that every organism expresses the Idea of which it is the
image, only after we have subtracted the part of its force
which is expended in subduing the lower Ideas that strive
with it for matter. This seems to have been running in the
mind of Jacob Bohm when he says somewhere that all the
bodies of men and animals, and even all plants, are really
half dead. According as the subjection in the organism of
these forces of nature, which express the lower grades of
the objectification of will, is more or less successful, the
more or the less completelv does it attain to the expression
of its Idea; that is to say, the nearer it is to the ideal or the
further from it — the ideal of beauty in its species.

Thus everywhere in nature we see strife, conflict, and
alternation of victory, and in it we shall come to recognise
more distinctly that variance with itself which is essential
to the will. Every grade of the objectification of will fights
for the matter, the space, and the time of the others. The
permanent matter must constantly change its form; for
under the guidance of causality, mechanical, physical, chem-
ical, and organic phenomena, eagerly striving to appear, wrest
the matter from each other, for each desires to reveal its
own Idea. This strife may be followed through the whole
^f nature; indeed nature exists only through it. Yet this

THE WORLD AS WILL iij

strife itself is only the revelation of that variance with itself
which is essential to the will. This universal conflict becomes
most distinctly visible in the animal kingdom. For animals
have the whole of the vegetable kingdom for their food,
and even within the animal kingdom every beast is the prey
and the food of another; that is, the matter in which its
Idea expresses itself must yield itself to the expression of
another Idea, for each animal can only maintain its exist-
ence by the constant destruction of some other. Thus the
will to live everywhere preys upon itself, and in different
forms is its own nourishment, till finally the human race,
because it subdues all the others, regards nature as a manu-
factory for its use. Yet even the human race, as we shall
see in the Fourth Book, reveals in itself with most terrible
distinctness this conflict, this variance with itself of the will,
and we find homo hoTnini lufus. Meanwhile we can recog-
nise this strife, this subjugation, just as well in the lowei
grades of the objectification of will. Many insects (espe-
cially ichneumon-flies) lay their eggs on the skin, and even
in the body of the larvas of other insects, whose slow de-
struction is the first work of the newly hatched brood. The
young hydra, which grows like a bud out of the old one,
and afterwards separates itself from it, fights while it is
still joined to the old one for the prey that offers itself, so
that the one snatches it out of the mouth of the other. But
the bulldog-ant of Australia affords us the most extraordi-
nary example of this kind; for if it is cut in two, a battle
begins between the head and the tail. The head seizes the
tail with its teeth, and the tail defends itself bravely by
stinging the head: the battle may last for half an hour, until
they die or are dragged away by other ants. This contest
takes place every time the experiment is tried. On the banks
of the Missouri one sometimes sees a mighty oak the stem
and branches of which are so encircled, fettered, and inter*
laced by a gigantic wild vine, that it withers as if choked^

114 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

The same thing shows itself in the lowest grades; for ex*
ample, when water and carbon are changed into vegetable
Gap, or vegetables or bread into blood by organic assimilation;
.and so also in every case in which animal secretion takes
^olace, along with the restriction of chemical forces to a sub-
ordinate mode of activity. This also occui"s in unorganised
nature, when, for example, crystals in process of formatior
meet, cross, and mutually disturb each other to such an extent
that they are unable to assume the pure crystalline form, so
that almost every cluster of cr^'stals is an imac^e of such a
conflict of will at this low grade of its objectification; or
again, when a magnet forces its magnetism upon iron, in
order to express its Idea in it; or when galvanism overcomes
chemical affinity, decomposes the closest combinations, and
so entirely suspends the laws of chemistry that the a^id of a
decomposed salt at the negative pole must pass to the positive
pole without combining with the alkalies through which it
goes on its way, or turning red the litmus paper that touches
it. On a large scale it shows itself in the relation between
the central body and the planet, for although the planet is
in absolute dependence, yet it always resists, just like the
chemical forces in the organism; hence arises the constant
tension between centripetal and centrifugal force, which
keeps the globe in motion, and is itself an example of that
universal essential conflict of the manifestation of will
which we are considering. For as every body must be re-
garded as the manifestation of a will, and as will necessarily
expresses itself as a struggle, the original condition of every
world that is formed into a globe cannot be rest, but motion,
a striving forward in boundless space without rest and with-
out end.

We should see the will express itself here in the lowest

grade as blind striving, an obscure, inarticulate impulse, far

from susceptible of being directly known. It is the simplest

.and the weakest mode of its objectification. But it appears

THE WORLD AS WILL 115

as this blind and unconscious striving in the whole of un-
organised nature, in all those original forces of which it is
the work of physics and chemistry to discover and to study
the laws, and each of which manifests itself to us in millions
of phenomena which are exactly similar and regular, and
show no trace of individual character, but are mere multi-
plicity through space and time, i.e., through the frincifum
individuationis, as a picture is multiplied through the facets
of a glass.

From grade to grade objectifying itself more distinctly,
yet still completely without consciousness as an obscure striv-
ing force, the will acts in the vegetable kingdom also, in
which the bond of its phenomena consists no longer properly
of causes, but of stimuli; and, finally, also in the vegetative
part of the animal phenomenon, in the production and ma-
turing of the animal and in sustaining its inner economy, in
v/hich the manifestation of will is still always necessarily
determined by stimuli. The ever-ascending grades of thv;
objectification of will bring us at last to the point at which
the individual that expresses the Idea could no longer receive
food for its assimilation through mere movement following
upon stimuli. For such a stimulus must be waited for, but
the food has now come to be of a more special and definite
kind, and with the ever-increasing multiplicity of the indi-
vidual phenomena, the crowd and confusion has become so
great that they interfere with each other, and the chance of
the individual that is moved merely by stimuli and mus<-
wait for its food ;vould be too unfavourable. From the
point, therefore, at which the animal has delivered itself
from the egg or the womb in which it vegetated without
consciousness, its food must be sought out and selected. For
this purpose movement following upon motives, and there-
fore consciousness, becomes necessary, and -consequently it
appears as an agent, f^VX^'^Vt called in at this stage of the
objectification of will for the conservation of the individual

Ii6 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

and the oropagation of the species. It appears represented by
the brain or a large ganglion, just as every other effort or
determination of the will which objectifies itself is repre-
sented by an organ, that is to say, manifests itself for the
idea as an organ/ But with this means of assistance, this
f^i]X^^^y the world as idea comes into existence at a stroke,
with all its forms, object and subject, time, space, multi-
plicity, and causality. The world now shows its second side.
Till now mere willy it becomes also ideay object of the
knowing subject. The will, which up to this point followed
its tendency in the dark with unerring certainty, has at this
grade kindled for itself a light as a means which became
necessary for getting rid of the disadvantage which arose
from the throng and the complicated nature of its manifes-
tations, and which would have accrued precisely to the most
perfect of them. The hitherto infallible certainty and regu-
larity with which it worked in unorganised and merely vege-
tative nature, rested upon the fact that it alone was active in
its original nature, as blind impulse, will, without assistance,
and also without interruption, from a second and entirely
different world, the world as idea, which is indeed only the
image of its own inner being, but is yet of quite another
nature, and now encroaches on the connected whole of its
phenomena. Hence its infallible certainty comes to an end.
Animals are already exposed to illusion, to deception. They
have, however, merely ideas of perception, no conceptions,
no reflections, and they are therefore bound to the present;
they cannot have regard for the future. It seems as if this
knowledge without reason was not in all cases sufficient for
its end, and at times required, as it were, some assistance.

Finally, when the will has attained to the highest grade
of its objectification, that knowledge of the understanding

^Cf chap xxii, of the Supplement, and also my work "Ueber den
Willen in der Natur," p. 54 et seq., and pp. 70-79 of the first edition,
>r p 46 ef seq., and pp. 63-72 of the second, or p. 48 et seq., and pp,
67-77 of the third edition.

THE WORLD AS WILL 117

given to brutes to which the senses supply the data, out of
which there arises mere perception confined to what is imme-
diately present, does not suffice. That complicated, many-
sided, imaginative being, man, with his many needs, and
exposed as he is to innumerable dangers, must, in order to
exist, be lighted by a double knowledge; a higher power, as
it were, of perceptive knowledge must be given him, and
also reason, as the faculty of framing abstract conceptions.
With this there has appeared reflection, surveying the future
and the past, and, as a consequence, deliberation, care, the
power of premeditated action independent of the present,
and finallj', the full and distinct consciousness of one's own
deliberate volition as such. Now if with mere knowledge of
perception there arose the possibility of illusion and decep-
tion, by which the previous infallibility of the blind striving
of will was done away with, so that mechanical and other
instincts, as expressions of unconscious will, had to lend their
help in the midst of those that were conscious, with the
entrance of reason that certainty and infallibility of the
expressions of will (which at the other extreme in unor-
ganised nature appeared as strict conformity to law) is al-
most entirely lost; instinct disappears altogether; delibera-
tion, which is supposed to take the place of everything else,
begets (as was shown in the First Book) irresolution and
uncertainty; then error becomes possible, and in many case§
obstructs the adequate objectification of the will in action.
For although in the character the will has already taken its
definite and unchangeable bent or direction, in accordance
with which volition, when occasioned by the presence of a
motive, invariably takes place, yet error can falsify its ex-
pressions, for it introduces illusive motives that take the place
of the real ones which they resemble; ^ as, for example,

^ The Scholastics therefore said very truly: Causa finalis movet non
secundum suum esse reale, sed secundum esse cognitum. Cf. Suarez,
Disp. Metaph., disp. xxiii, sec 7 and 8.

ii8 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

when superstition forces on a man imaginai'y motives which
impel him to a course of action directly opposed to the way
in which the will would otherwise express itself in the given
circumstances. Agamemnon slays his daughter; a miser dis-
penses alms, out of pure egotism, in the hope that he will
some day receive an hundredfold; and so on.

Thus knowledge generally, rational as well as merely
sensuous, proceeds originally from the will itself, belongs to
the inner being of the higher grades of its objectification as
a means of supporting the individual and the species, just
like any organ of the body. Originally destined for the
service of the will for the accomplishment of its aims, it
remains almost throughout entirely subjected to its service:
it is so in all brutes and in almost all men. Yet we shall see
in the Third Book how in certain individual men knowledge
can deliver itself from this bondage, throw off its yoke, and,
free from all the aims of will, exist purely for itself, simply
as a clear mirror of the world, which is the source of art.
Finally, in the Fourth Book, we shall see how, if this kind
of knowledge reacts on the will, it can bring about self-
surrender, i.e., resignation, which is the final goal, and in-
deed the inmost nature of all virtue and holiness, and is
deliverance from the world.

§ 28. We have considered the great multiplicity and
diversity of the phenomena in which the will objectifies it-
self, and we have seen their endless and implacable strife
ivith each other. Yet, according to the whole discussion up
to this point, the will itself, as thing-in-itself, is by no means
included in that multiplicity and change. The diversity of
the (Platonic) Ideas, i.e., grades of objectification, the
multitude of individuals in which each of these expresses
itself, the struggle of forms for matter, — all this does not
concern it, but is only the manner of its objectification, and
only through this has an indirect relation to it, by virtue of
which it belongs to the expression of the nature of will

THE WORLD AS WILL 119

for the idea. As the magic-lantern shows many different
pictures, which are all made visible by one and the same
light, so in all the multifarious phenomena which fill the
world together or throng after each other as events, only
one will manifests itself, of which everything is the visi-
bility, the objectivity, and which remains unmoved in the
midst of this change; it alone is thing-in-itself ; all objects
are manifestations, or, to speak the language of Kant,
phenomena. Although in man, as (Platonic) Idea, the
will finds its clearest and fullest objectification, yet man
alone could not express its being. In order to manifest
the full significance of the will, the Idea of man would
need to appear, not alone and sundered from everything
else, but accompanied by the whole series of grades, down
through all the forms of animals, through the vegetable
kingdom to unorganised nature. All these supplement each
other in the complete objectification of will; they are
as much presupposed by the Idea of man as the blossoms
of a tree presuppose leaves, branches, stem, and root; they
form a pyramid, of which man is the apex. If fond of
similes, one might also say that their manifestations ac^
company that of man as necessarily as the full daylight is
accompanied by all the gradations of twilight, through
which, little by little, it loses itself in darkness; or one
might call them the echo of man, and say: Animal and
plant are the descending fifth and third of man, the in-
organic kingdom is the lower octave. The full truth of
this last comparison will only become clear to us when,
in the following book, we attempt to fathom the deep
significance of music, and see how a connected, progressive
melody, made up of high, quick notes, may be regarded as
in some sense expressing the life and efforts of man con-
nected by reflection, while the unconnected complementa]
notes and the slow bass, which make up the harmony necesi'
sary to perfect the music, represent the rest of the anima)

i20 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

kingdom and the whole of nature that is without knowl-
edge. But of this in its own place, where it will not sound
so paradoxical. We find, however, that the inner necessity
of the gradation of its manifestations, which is inseparable
from the adequate objectification of the will, is expressed
by an outer necessity in the whole of these manifestations
themselves, by reason of which man has need of the beasts
for his support, the beasts in their grades have need of each
other as well as of plants, which in their turn require the
ground, water, chemical elements and their combinations,
the planet, the sun, rotation and motion round the sun, the
curve of the ellipse, &c., &c. At bottom this results from
the fact that the will must live on itself, for there exists
nothing beside it, and it is a hungry will. Hence arise eager
pursuit, anxiety, and suffering.

It is only the knowledge of the unity of will as thing-
in-itself, in the endless diversity and multiplicity of the
phenomena, that can afford us the true explanation of that
wonderful, unmistakable analogy of all the productions of
nature, that family likeness on account of which we may
regard them as variations on the same ungiven theme. So
in like measure, through the distinct and thoroughly com-
prehended knowledge of that harmony, that essential con-
nection of all the parts of the world, that necessity of their
gradation which we have just been considering, we shall
obtain a true and sufficient insight into the inner nature
and meaning of the undeniable teleology of all organised
productions of nature, which, indeed, we presupposed a
frioriy when considering and investigating them.

This teleology is of a twofold description; sometimes
an inner teleology y that is, an agreement of all the parts
of a particular organism, so ordered that the sustenance
of the individual and the species results from it, and there-
fore presents itself as the end of that disposition or arrange-
ment. Sometimes, however, there is an outward teleology^

THE WORLD AS WILL 12C

a relation of unorganised to organised nature in general,
or of particular parts of organised nature to each other,
which makes the maintenance of the whole of organised
nature, or of the particular animal species, possible, and
therefore presents itself to our judgment as the means to
this end.

Inner teleology is connected with the scheme of our
work in the following way. If, in accordance with what
has been said, all variations of form in nature, and all
multiplicity of individuals, belong not to the will itself,
but merely to its objectivity and the form of this objectivity,
it necessarily follows that the will is indivisible and is
present as a whole in every manifestation, although the
grades of its objectification, the (Platonic) Ideas, are very
different from each other. We may, for the sake of sim-
plicity, regard these different Ideas as in themselves indi-
vidual and simple acts of the will, in which it expresses
its nature more or less. Individuals, however, are again
manifestations of the Ideas, thus of these acts, in time,
space, and multiplicity. Now, in the lowest grades of ob^
jectivity, such an act (or an Idea) retains its unity in th««
manifestation; while, in order to appear in higher grades^
it requires a whole series of conditions and developments
in time, which only collectively express its nature com-
pletely. Thus, for example, the Idea that reveals itself in an)
general force of nature has always one single expression,
although it presents itself differently according to the ex-
ternal relations that are present: otherwise its identity could
not be proved, for this is done by abstracting the diversity
that arises merely from external relations. In the same way
the crystal has only one manifestation of life, crystallisa-
tion, which afterwards has its fully adequate and exhaustive
expression in the rigid form, the corpse of that momentary
life. The plant, however, does not express the Idea, whose
phenomenon it is, at once and through a single manifesta-

122 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

tion, but in a succession of developments of its organs in
time. The animal not only develops its organism in the
same manner, in a succession of forms which are often
very different (metamorphosis), but this form itself, al-
though it is already objectivity of will at this grade, does
not attain to a full expression of its Idea. This expression
must be completed through the actions of the animal, in
which its empirical character, common to the whole species,
manifests itself, and only then does it become the full
revelation of the Idea, a revelation which presupposes
the particular organism as its first condition. In the case
of man, the empirical character is peculiar to every indi-
vidual (indeed, as we shall see in the Fourth Book, even to
the extent of supplanting entirely the character of the
species, through the self-surrender of the whole will).
That which is known as the empirical character, through
the necessary development in time, and the division into
particular actions that is conditioned by it, is, when we
abstract from this temporal form of the manifestation the
intelUgible character y according to the expression of Kant,
who shows his undying merit especially in establishing
this distinction and explaining the relation between freedom
and necessity, i.e.y between the will as thing-in-itself and
its manifestations in time.^ Thus the intelligible character
coincides with the Idea, or, more accurately, with the
original act of will which reveals itself in it. So far then,
not only the empirical character of every man, but also
that of every species of animal and plant, and even of every
original force of unorganised nature, is to be regarded
as the manifestation of an intelligible character, that is, of

1 Cf. "Critique of Pure Reason. Solution of the Cosmological Ideas
of the Totality of the Deduction of the Events in the Universe," pp.
560-586 of the fifth, and p. 532 and following of first edition; and
"Critique of Practical Reason," fourth edition, pp. 169-179; Rosen-
kranz' edition, p. 224 and following. Cf. my Essay on the Principle
of Suffir.APnt Reason, § 43.

THE WORLD AS WILL 123

a timeless, indivisible act of will. I should like here to
draw attention in passing to the naivete with which every
plant expresses and lays open its whole character in its
mere form, reveals its whole being and will. This is
why the physiognomy of plants is so interesting; while
in order to know an animal in its Idea, it is necessary
to observe the course of its action. As for man, he mus'c
be fully investigated and tested, for reason makes him
capable of a high degree of dissimulation. The beast is
as much more naive than the man as the plant is more
naive than the beast. In the beast we see the will to live
more naked, as it were, than in the man, in whom it is
clothed with so much knowledge, and is, moreover, so veiled
through the capacity for dissimulation, that it is almost
only by chance, and here and there, that its true nature
becomes apparent. In the plant it shows itself quite naked,
but also much weaker, as mere blind striving for existence
without end or aim. For the plant reveals its whole being
at the first glance, and with complete innocence, which
does not suffer from the fact that it carries its organs of
generation exposed to view on its upper surface, though in
all animals they have been assigned to the most hidden
part. This innocence of the plant results from its complete
want of knowledge. Guilt does not lie in willing, but in
willing with knowledge. Every plant speaks to us first of
all of its home, of the climate, and the nature of the
ground in which it has grown. Therefore, even those who
have had little practice easily tell whether an exotic plant
belongs to the tropical or the temperate zone, and whether
it grows in water, in marshes, on mountain, or on moor-
land. Besides this, however, every plant expresses the special
will of its species, and says something that cannot be uttered
in any other tongue. But we must now apply what has been
said to the teleological consideration of the organism, so
far as it concerns its inner design. If in unorganised nature

124 THL PPIILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

the Idea, which is everywhere to be regarded as a single
act of v/ill, reveals itself also in a single manifestation
which k always the same, and thus one may say that here
the errpirical character directly partakes of the unity of
the infelligible, coincides, as it were, with it, so that no inner
design can show itself here; if, on the contrary, all or-
gan;sms express their Ideas through a series of successive
developments, conditioned by a multiplicity of co-existing
parts, and thus only the sum of the manifestations of the
empirical character collectively constitute the expression of
the intelligible character; this necessary co-existence of the
parts and succession of the stages of development does not
destroy the unity of the appearing Idea, the act of will
which expresses itself; nay, rather this unity finds its ex-
pression in the necessary relation and connection of the parts
and stages of development with each other, in accordance
with the law of causality. Since it is the will which is one,
indivisible, and therefore entirely in harmony with itself,
that reveals itself in the whole Idea as in act, its manifesta-
tion, although broken up into a number of different parts
and conditions, must yet show this unity again in the
thorough agreement of all of these. This is effected by a
necessary relation and dependence of all the parts upon each
other, by means of which the unity of the Idea is re-estab-
lished in the manifestation. In accordance with this, we
now recognise these different parts and functions of the
organism as related to each other reciprocally as means
and end, but the organism itself as the final end of all.
Consequently, neither the breaking up of the Idea, which
in itself is simple, into the multiplicity of the parts and
conditions of the organism, on the one hand, nor, on the
other hand, the re-establishment of its unity through the
necessary connection of the parts and functions which
arises from the fact that they are the cause and effect, the
means and end, of each other, is peculiar and essentia)

THE WORLD AS WILL 125

to the appearing will as such, to the thi*ng-in-itself, but
only to its manifestation in space, time, and causality (mera
modes of the principle of sufficient reason, the form of
the phenomenon). They belong to the world as idea, not
to the world as will; they belong to the way in which the
will becomes object, i.e., idea at this grade of its objectivity.
Every one who has grasped the meaning of this discussion — »
a discussion which is perhaps somewhat difficult — will now
fully understand the doctrine of Kant, which follows from
it, that both the design of organised and the conformity to
law of unorganised nature are only introduced by our
understanding, and therefore both belong only to the
phenomenon, not to the thing-in-itself. The surprise, which
was referred to above, at the infallible constancy of the
conformity to law of unorganised nature, is essentially the
same as the surprise that is excited by design in organise^
nature; for in both cases what we wonder at is only the
sight of the original unity of the Idea, which, for the
phenomenon, has assumed the form of multiplicity and di-
versity/

As regards the second kind of teleology, according ta
the division made above, the outer design, which showi;
itself, not in the inner economy of the organisms, but in
the support and assistance they receive from without, both
from unorganised nature and from each other; its general
explanation is to be found in the exposition we have just
given. For the whole world, with all its phenomena, is the
objectivity of the one indivisible will, the Idea, which is
related to all other Ideas as harmony is related to the single
voice. Therefore that unity of the will must show itself
also in the agreement of all its manifestations. But we can
very much increase the clearness of this insight if we go

* Cf. "Ueber den Willen in der Natur," at the end of the section 00
Comparative Anatomy.

126 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

somewhat more closely into the manifestations of that outer
teleology and agreement of the different parts of nature
with each other, an inquiry which will also throw some light
on the foregoing exposition. We shall best attain this end
by considering the following analogy.

The character of each individual man, so far as it is
thoroughly individual, and not entirely included in that
of the species, may be regarded as a special Idea, cor-
responding to a special act of the objectification of will.
This act itself would then be his intelligible character,
and his empirical character would be the manifestation of
it. The empirical character is entirely determined through
the intelligible, which is without ground, i.e., as thing-in-
itself is not subordinated to the principle of sufficient
reason (the form of the phenomenon). The empirical char-
acter must in the course of life afford us the express image
of the intelligible, and can only become what the nature of
the latter demands. But this property extends only to the
essential, not to the unessential in the course of life to
which it applies. To this unessential belong the detailed
events and actions which are the material in which the
empirical character shows itself. These are determined by
outward circumstances, which present the motives upon
which the character reacts according to its nature; and as
they may be very different, the outward form of the manifes-
tation of the empirical character, that is, the definite actual
or historical form of the course of life, will have to ac-
commodate itself to their influence. Now this form may
be very different, although what is essential to the manifesta-
tion, its content, remains the same. Thus, for example, it
is immaterial whether a man plays for nuts or for crowns;
but whether a man cheats or plays fairly, that is the real
matter; the latter is determined by the intelligible character,
the former by outward circumstances. As the same theme

THE WORLD AS WILL 12)

may be expressed in a hundred different variations, so thfl
same character may be expressed in a hundred very dif-
ferent lives. But various as the outward influence may be
the empirical character which expresses itself in the course
of life must yet, whatever form it takes, accurately objectify
the intelligible character, for the latter adapts its objecti-
jfication to the given material of actual circumstances. W^
have now to assume something analogous to the influence
of outward circumstances upon the life that is determined
in essential matters by the character, if we desire to under-
stand how the will, in the original act of its objectification,
determines the various Ideas in which it objectifies itself,
that is, the different forms of natural existence of every
kind, among which it distributes its objectification, and
which must therefore necessarily have a relation to each other
in the manifestation. We must assume that between all
these manifestations of the one will there existed a universal
and reciprocal adaptation and accommodation of themselves
to each other, by which, however, as we shall soon see more
clearly, all time-determination is to be excluded, for the
Idea lies outside time. In accordance with this, every
manifestation must have adapted itself to the surroundings
into which it entered, and these again must have adapted
themselves to it, although it occupied a much later position
in time; and we see this consensus natures everywhere.
Every plant is therefore adapted to its soil and climate,
every animal to its element and the prey that will be its
food, and is also in some way protected, to a certain extent,
against its natural enemy; the eye is adapted to the light
and its refrangibility, the lungs and the blood to the air,
the air-bladder of fish to water, the eye of the seal to the
change of the medium in which it must see, the water-pouch
in the stomach of the camel to the drought of the African
deserts, the sail of the nautilus to the wind that is to drive
its little bark, and so on down to the most special and

128 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

astonishing outward adaptations/ We must abstract how-
ever here from all temporal relations, for these can only
concern the manifestation of the Idea, not the Idea itself.
Accordingly this kind of explanation must also be used
retrospectively, and we must not merely admit that ever}'
species accommodated itself to the given environment, but
also that this environment itself, which preceded it in time,
had just as much regard for the being that would some time
come into it. For it is one and the same will that objectifies
itself in the whole world; it knows no time, for this form
of the principle of sufficient reason does not belong to it,
nor to its original objectivity, the Ideas, but only to the
way in which these are known by the individuals who them-
selves are transitory, i.e.^ to the manifestation of the Ideas.
Thus, time has no significance for our present examination
of the manner in which the objectification of the will dis-
tributes itself among the Ideas, and the Ideas whose mani-
festations entered into the course of time earlier, according
to the law of causality, to which as phenomena they are
subject, have no advantage over those whose manifestation
entered later; nay rather, these last are the completest ob-
jectifications of the will, to which the earlier manifestations
must adapt themselves just as much as they must adapt
themselves to the earlier. Thus the course of the planets,
the tendency to the ellipse, the rotation of the earth, the
division of land and sea, the atmosphere, light, warmth, and
all such phenomena, which are in nature what bass is in
harmony, adapted themselves in anticipation of the coming
species of living creatures of which they were to become
the supporter and sustainer. In the same way the ground
adapted itself to the nutrition of plants, plants adapted them-
selves to the nutrition of animals, animals to that of other
animals, and conversely they all adapted themselves to the

^Cf. "Ueber den Willen in der Natur," the section on Comparative
Anatomy.

THE WORLD AS WILL 12^

nutrition of the ground. All the parts of nature correspond
to each other, for it is one will that appears in them all, but
the course of time is quite foreign to its original and only
adequate objectification (this expression will be explained in
the following book), the Ideas. Ev^n now, when the species
have only to sustain themselves, no longer to come into exist-
ence, we see here and there some {>uch forethought of nature
extending to the future, and abstracting as it were from the
process of time, a self -adaptation of what is to what is yet
to come. The bird builds the nest for the young which it
does not yet know; the beaver constructs a dam the object
of which is unknown to it; ants, marmots, and bees lay in
provision for the winter they have never experienced; the
spider and the ant-lion make snares, as if with deliberate
cunning, for future unknown prey; insects deposit their
eggs where the coming brood finds future nourishment. In
the springtime the female flower of the dioecian valisneria
unwinds the spirals of its stalk, by which till now it was held
at the bottom of the water, and thus rises to the surface.
Just then the male flower, which grows on a short stalk from
the bottom, breaks away, and so, at the sacrifice of its life,
reaches the surface, where it swims about in search of the
female. The latter is fructified, and then draws itself down
again to the bottom by contracting its spirals, and there th^
fruit grows. ^ I must again refer here to the larva of the
male stag-beetle, which makes the hole in the wood for its
metamorphosis as big again as the female does, in order to
have room for its future horns. The instinct of animals in
general gives us the best illustration of what remains of
teleology in nature. For as instinct is an action, like that
which is guided by the conception of an end, and yet is
entirely without this; so all construction of nature resembles
that which is guided by the conception of an end, and yet is

1 Chatin, Sur la Valisneria Spiralis, in the Comptes Rendus de
I'Acad. de Sc, No. 13, 1855.

130 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

entirely without it. For in the outer as in the inner teleology
of nature, what we are obliged to think as means and end is,
in every case, the manifestation of the unity of the one will
so thoroughly agreeing zuith itself, which has assumed multi-
plicity in space and time for our manner of knowing.

The reciprocal adaptation and self-accommodation of
phenomena that springs from this unity cannot, however,
annul the inner contradiction which appears in the universal
conflict of nature described above, and which is essential to
the will. That harmony goes only so far as to render possible
the duration of the world and the different kinds of exist-
-ences in it, which without it would long since have perished.
Therefore it only extends to the continuance of the species,
and the general conditions of life, but not to that of the
individual. If, then, by reason of that harmony and ac-
commodation, the species in organised nature and the uni-
versal forces in unorganised nature continue to exist beside
each other, and indeed support each other reciprocally, on
the other hand, the inner contradiction of the will which
objectifies itself in all these ideas shows itself in the ceaseless
internecine war of the individuals of these species, and in
the constant struggle of the manifestations of these natural
forces with each other, as we pointed out above. The scene
(^and the object of this conflict is matter, which they try to
', wrest from each other, and also space and time, the combi-
j nation of which through the form of causality is, in fact,
I matter, as was explained in the First Book.^
^ § 29. I here conclude the second principal division of my
exposition, in the hope that, so far as is possible in the case
of an entirely new thought, which cannot be quite free from
traces of the individuality in which it originated, I have suc-
ceeded in conveying to the reader the complete certainty that
this world in which we live and have our being is in its
whole nature through and through willy and at the same
^ Cf . Chaps, xxvi. and xxvii. of the Supplement.

THE WORLD AS WILL 131

rime through and through idea: that this idea, as such, al-
ready^ j)resupposes a form, object and subject, is therefore
relative; and if we ask what remains if we take away this
form, and all those forms which are subordinate to it, and
which express the principle of sufficient reason, the answer
must be that as something toto genere different from idea,
this can be nothing but w/7/, which is thus properly the thing-
in-itself. Every one finds that he himself is this will, in
which the real nature of the world consists, and he also
finds that he is the knowing subject, whose idea the whole
world is, the v/orld which exists only in relation to his con-
sciousness, as its necessary supporter. Every one is thus him-
self in a double aspect the whole world, the microcosm;
finds both sides whole and complete in himself. And what
he thus recognises as his own real being also exhausts the
being of the whole world — the macrocosm; thus the world,
like man, is through and through willy and through and
through ideay and nothing more than this. So we see the
philosophy of Thales, which concerned the macrocosm, unite
at this point with that of Socrates, which dealt with the
microcosm, for the object of both is found to be the same.
But all the knowledge that has been communicated in the
two first books will gain greater completeness, and conse-
quently greater certainty from the two following books in
which I hope that several questions that have more or less
distinctly arisen in the course of our work will also be suffi-
ciently answered.

In the meantime one such question may be more particu-
larly considered, for it can only properly arise so long as
one has not fully penetrated the meaning of the foregoing
exposition, and may so far serve as an illustration of it. It
is this: Every,will is a will towards something, has an object,
an_end of its willing; what then is the final end, or towards
what is that will striving that is exhibited to us as the thing-
in-itself of the world? This question rests, like so many

132 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

others, upon the confusion of the thing-in-itself with the
manifestation. The principle of sufficient reason, of which
the law of motivation is also a form, extends only to the
latter, not to the former. It is only of phenomena, of indi-
vidual things, that a ground can be given, never of the will
itself, nor of the Idea in which it adequately objectifies it-
self. So then of every particular movement or change of any
kind in nature, a cause is to be sought, that is, a condition
that of necessity produced it, but never of the natural force
itself which is revealed in this and innumerable similar phe-
nomena; and it is therefore simple misunderstanding, arising
from want of consideration, to ask for a cause of gravity,
electricity, and so on. Only if one had somehow shown that
gravity and electricity were not original special forces of
nature, but only the manifestations of a more general force
already known, would it be allowable to ask for the cause
which made this force produce the phenomena of gravity or
of electricity here. All this has been explained at length
above. In the same way every particular act of will of a
knowing individual (which is itself only a manifestation of
will as the thing-in-itself) has necessarily a motive without
which that act would never have occurred; but just as mate-
rial causes contain merely the determination that at this time,
in this place, and in this matter, a manifestation of this or
that natural force must take place, so the motive determines
only the act of will of a knowing being, at this time, in this
place, and under these circumstances, as a particular act, but
by no means determines that that being wills in general or
wills in this manner; this is the expression of his intelligible
character, which, as will itself, the thing-in-itself, is without
ground, for it lies outside the province of the principle of
sufficient reason. Therefore every man has permanent aims
and motives by which he guides his conduct, and he can
always give an account of his particular actions; but if he
wQrc asked why he wills at all, or why in general he wills

THE WORLD AS WILL 133

to exist, he would have no answer, and the question would
indeed seem to him meaningless; and this would be just the
expression of his consciousness that he himself is nothing but
will, whose willing stands by itself and requires more par-
ticular determination by motives only in its individual acts
at each point of time.

In fact, freedom from all aim, from all limits, belongs
to the nature of the will, which isjm endless striving. This
was already touched on above in the reference to centrifugal
force. It also discloses itself in its simplest form in the lowest
grade of the objectification of will, in gravitation, which we
see constantly exerting itself, though a final goal is obviously
impossible for it. For if, according to its will, all existing
matter were collected in one mass, yet within this mass
gravity, ever striving towards the centre, would still wage
war with impenetrability as rigidity or elasticity. The tend-
ency of matter can therefore only be confined, never com-
pleted or appeased. But this is precisely the case with all
tendencies of all phenomena of will. Every attained end is
also tiie beginning of a new course, and so on ad infinitum.
The plant raises its manifestation from the seed through the
stem and the leaf to the blossom and the fruit, which again
is the beginning of a new seed, a new individual, that runs
through the old course, and so on through endless time.
Such also is the life of the animal; procreation is its highest
point, and after attaining to it, the life of the first individual
quickly or slowly sinks, while a new life ensures to nature
the endurance of the species and repeats the same phenomena.
Indeed, the constant renewal of the matter of every organism
is also to be regarded as merely the manifestation of this
continual pressure and change, and physiologists are now
ceasing to hold that it is the necessary reparation of the mat-
ter wasted in motion, for the possible wearing out of the
machine can by no means be equivalent to the support it is
constantly receiving through nourishment. Eternal becom-

134 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

ing^endless flux, characterises the revelation of the inner na-
ture of will. Finally, the same thing shows itself in human
endeavours and desires, which always delude us by present-
ing tlieir satisfaction as the final end of will. As soon as we
attain to them they no longer appear the same, and therefore
they soon grow stale, are forgotten, and though not openly
disowned, are yet always thrown aside as vanished illusions.
We are fortunate enough if there still remains something to
wish for and to strive after, that the game may be kept up
of constant transition from desire to satisfaction, and from
satisfaction to a new desire, the rapid course of which is
called happiness, and the slow course sorrow, and does not
sink into that stagnation that shows itself in fearful ennui
that paralyses life, vain yearning without a dejfinite object,
deadening languor. According to all this, when the will ia
enlightened by knowledge, it always knows what it will?)
now and here, never what it wills in general; every par^
ticular act of will has its end, the whole will has none; just
^s every particular phenomenon of nature is determined by
a sufficient cause so far as concerns its appearance in this
place at this time, but the force which manifests itself in it
has no general cause, for it belongs to the thing-in-itself,
to the groundless will. The single example of self-knowl-
edge of the will as a whole is the idea as a whole, the whole
world of perception. It is the objectiiication, the revelation,
the mirror of the will. What the will expresses in it will be
the subject of our further consideration.

Third Book
THE WORLD AS IDEA

SECOND ASPECT

the idea independent of the principle of sufficten'^
reason: the Platonic idea: the object of art

ni

§ 30. In the First Book the world was explained as mere
idea, object for a subject. In the Second Book we considere(i
it from its other side, and found that in this aspect it is willy
which proved to be simply that which this world is besides
being idea. In accordance with this knowledge we called the
world as idea, both as a whole and in its parts, the objecti'
fication of willy which therefore means the will become ob-
ject, i.e.y idea. Further, we remember that this objectification
of will was found to have many definite grades, in which,
with gradually increasing distinctness and completeness, the
nature of will appears in the idea, that is to say, presents
itself as object. In these grades we already recognised tlie
Platonic Ideas, for the grades are just the determined species,
or the original unchanging forms and qualities of all natural
bodies, both organised and unorganised, and also the general
forces which reveal themselves according to natural laws.
These Ideas, then, as a whole express themselves in innumer-«
able individuals and particulars, and are related to these as
archetypes to their copies. The multiplicity of such indi-
viduals is only conceivable through time and space, their
appearing and passing away through causality, and in all
these forms we recognise merely the different modes of the
principle of sufficient reason, which is the ultimate principle
of all that is finite, of all individual existence, and the uni-
versal form of the idea as it appears in the knowledge of
the individual as such. The Platonic Idea, on the other hand^
does not come under this principle, and has therefore neither
multiplicity nor change. While the individuals in which if
expresses itself are innumerable, and unceasingly come into

137

138 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

being and pass away, it remains unchanged as one and the
same, and the principle of sufficient reason has for it no
meaning. As, however, this is the form under which all
knowledge of the subject comes, so far as the subject knows
as an ind'tvidualy the Ideas lie quite outside the sphere of its
knowledge. If, therefore, the Ideas are to become objects of
knowledge, this can only happen by transcending the indi^
viduality of the knowing subject. The more exact and de-
tailed explanation of this is what will now occupy our
attention.

§ 31. First, however, the following very essential remark.
I hope that in the preceding book I have succeeded in pro-
ducing the conviction that what is called in the Kantian
philosophy the thing-in-itselfy and appears there as so signifi-
cant, and yet so obscure and paradoxical a doctrine, and
especially on account of the manner in which Kant intro-
duced it as an inference from the caused to the cause, was
considered a stumbling-stone, and, in fact, the weak side of
his philosop]:\y, — that this, I say, if it is reached by the en-
tirely different way by which we have arrived at it, is nothing
but the zvfll when the sphere of that conception is extended
and defined in the way I have shown. I hope, further, that
after what has been said there will be no hesitation in recog-
nising the definite grades of the objectification of the will,
which is the inner reality of the world, to be what Plato
called the eternal Ideas or unchangeable forms (e<(5?y); a
doctrine which is regarded as the principal, but at the same
time the most obscure and paradoxical dogma of his system,
and has been the subject of reflection and controversy, of
ridicule and of reverence, to so many and such differently
endowed minds in the course of many centuries.

If now the will is for us the thing-in-itself, and the Idea
is the immediate objectivity of that will at a definite grade,
we find that Kant's thing-in-itself, and Plato's Idea, which to
him is the only ovirjog or, these two great obscure paradoxes

THE WORLD AS IDEA 139

of the two greatest philosophers of the West are not indeed
identical, but yet very closely related, and only distinguished
by a single circumstance. The purport of these two great
paradoxes, with all inner harmony and relationship, is yet
so very different on account of the remarkable diversity of
the individuality of their authors, that they are the best
commentary on each other, for they are like two entirely
different roads that conduct us to the same goal. This is
easily made clear. What Kant says is in substance this: —
"Time, space, and causality are not determinations of the
thing-in-itself, but belong only to its phenomenal existence^
for they are nothing but the forms of our knowledge. Since,
however, all multiplicity, and all coming into being and
passing away, are only possible through time, space, and
causality, it follows that they also belong only to the phe-
nomenon, not to the thing-in-itself. But as our knowledge
is conditioned by these forms, the whole of experience is
only knowledge of the phenomenon, not of the thing-in-
itself; therefore its laws cannot be made valid for the thing-^
in-itself. This extends even to our own egOy and we know it
only as phenomenon, and not according to what it may be
in itself." This is the meaning and content of the doctrine
of Kant in the important respect we are considering. What
Plato says is this: — "The things of this world which our
senses perceive have no true being; they always become ^ they
never are: they have only a relative being; they all exist
merely in and through their relations to each other; their
whole being may, therefore, quite as well be called a non-
being. They are consequently not objects of a true knowledge
(sTiioxrj/Lir])^ for such a knowledge can only be of what
exists for itself, and always in the same way; they, on the
contrary, are only the objects of an opinion based on sensa*
tion (do^a fisi* aiodrjoecog aXoyov), So long as we are con-
fined to the perception of these, we are like men who sit in
a tlark cave, bound so fast that they r>annot turn their heads.

I40 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

Wid who see nothing but the shadows of real things which
pass between them and a fire burning behind them, the light
of which casts the shadows on the wall opposite them; and
even of themselves and of each other they see only the
shadows on the wall. Their wisdom would thus consist in
predicting the order of the shadows learned from experi-
ence. The real archetypes, on the other hand, to which these
shadows correspond, the eternal Ideas, the original forms of
all things, can alone be said to have true being (ovicog ov),
because they always are, but never become nor fass away.
To them belongs no multiflicity ; for each of them is ac-
cording to its nature only one, for it is the archetype itself,
of which all particular transitory things of the same kind
which are named after it are copies or shadows. They have
also no coming into being nor fassing away, for they are
truly being, never becoming nor vanishing, like their fleet-
ing shadows. (It is necessarily presupposed, however, in these
two negative definitions, that time, space, and causality have
no significance or validity for these Ideas, and that they do
not exist in them.) Of these only can there be true knowl-
edge, for the object of such knowledge can only be that
which always and in every respect (thus in-itself) is; not
that which is and again is not, according as we look at it."
This is Plato's doctrine. It is clear, and requires no further
proof that the inner meaning of both doctrines is entirely
the same; that both explain the visible world as a manifesta-
tion, which in itself is nothing, and which only has meaning
and a borrowed reality through that which expresses itself in
it (in the one case the thing-in-itself, in the other the Idea).
To this last, which has true being, all the forms of that
phenomenal existence, even the most universal and essential,
are, according to both doctrines, entirely foreign. In order
to disown these forms Kant has directly expressed them even
in abstract terms, and distinctly refused time, space, and
causality as mere forms of the phenomenon to the thing-in*

THE WORLD AS IDEA 141'

itself. Plato, on the other hand, did not attain to the fullest
expression, and has only distinctly refused these forms to
his Ideas in that he denies of the Ideas what is only possibla
through these forms, multiplicity of similar things, coming
into being and passing away. Though it is perhaps superflu^
ous, I should like to illustrate this remarkable and important
agreement by an example. There stands before us, let us
suppose, an animal in the full activity of life. Plato would
say, "This animal has no true existence, but merely an
apparent existence, a constant becoming, a relative existence
which may just as well be called non-being as being. Only
the Idea which expresses itself in that animal is truly 'bein^,'
or the animal in-itself (avTO to Otjqiov)^ which is dependent
upon nothing, but is in and for itself (xaO* ^avzo eat cos
avTO)?); it has not become, it will not end, but always i9
in the same way (asi or, /at fir]d£7ioie ovie ylyvofievoif
OVTS anoXlvfievov), If now we recognise its Idea in thii
animal, it is all one and of no importance whether we hav^
this animal now before us or its progenitor of a thousand
years ago, whether it is here or in a distant land, whether i<
presents itself in this or that manner, position, or action;
whether, lastly, it is this or any other individual of the sami
species; all this is nothing, and only concerns the phe-
nomenon; the Idea of the animal alone has true being, and
is the object of real knowledge." So Plato; Kant would
say something of this kind, "This animal is a phenomenon
in time, space, and causality, which are collectively the con-
ditions a friori of the possibility of experience, lying in our
faculty of knowledge, not determinations of the thmg-in-
itself. Therefore this animal as we perceive it at this definite
point of time, in this particular place, as an individual in
the connection of experience («.<?., in the chain of causes and
effects), which has come into being, and will just as neces-
sarily pass away, is not a thing-in-itself, but a phenomenon
which only exists in relation to our knowledge. To know it

142 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

as what it may be in itself, that is to say, independent of all
the determinations which lie in time, space, and causality,
would demand another kind of knowledge than that which
is possible for us through the senses and the understanding."

In order to bring Kant's mode of expression nearer the
Platonic, v/e might say: Time, space, and causality are
that arrangement of our intellect by virtue of which the one
being of each kind which alone really is, manifests itself to
us as a multiplicity of similar beings, constantly appearing
&nd disappearing in endless succession. The apprehension of
things by means of and in accordance with this arrangement
is immanent knowledge; that, on the other hand, which is
conscious of the true state of the case, is transcendental
knowledge. The latter is obtained in abstracto through the
criticism of pure reason, but in exceptional cases it may also
appear intuitively. This last is an addition of my own, which
I am endeavouring in this Third Book to explain.

§ 32. It follows from our consideration of the subject,
that, for us. Idea arid thing-in-itself are not entirely one
and the same, in spite of the inner agreement between Kant
and Plato, and the identity of the aim they had before them,
or the conception of the world which roused them and led
them to philosophise. The Idea is for us rather the direct,
and therefore adequate, objectivity of the thing-in-itself,
which is, however, itself the will — the will as not yet ob-
jectified, not yet become idea. For the thing-in-itself must,
even according to Kant, be free from all the forms con-
nected with knowing as such; and it is merely an error on
his part (as is shown in the Appendix) that he did not count
among these forms, before all others, that of being object
for a subject, for it is the first and most universal form of
all phenomena, i.e.y of all idea; he should therefore have
distinctly denied objective existence to his thing-in-itself,
which would have saved him from a great inconsistency
that was soon discovered. The Platonic Idea, on the other

THE WORLD AS IDEA 143^

hand, is necessarily object, something known, an idea, and
in that respect is different from the thing-in-itself, but in
that respect only. It has merely laid aside the subordinate
forms of the phenomenon, all of which we include in the
principle of sufficient reason, or rather it has not yet assumed
them; but it has retained the first and most universal form,
that of the idea in general, the form of being object for a
subject. It is the forms which are subordinate to this (whose
general expression is the principle of sufficient reason) that
multiply the Idea in particular transitory individuals, whose
number is a matter of complete indifference to the Idea.
The principle of sufficient reason is thus again the form into
which the Idea enters when it appears in the knowledge of
the subject as individual. The particular thing that manifests
itself in accordance with the principle of sufficient reason
is thus only an indirect objectification of the thing-in-itself
(which is the will), for between it and the thing-in-itself
stands the Idea as the only direct objectivity of the will, be-
cause it has assumed none of the special forms of knowledge
as such, except that of the idea in general, i.e., the form of
being object for a subject. Therefore it alone is the most
adequate objectivity of the will or thing-in-itself which is
possible; indeed it is the whole thing-in-itself, only under
the form of the idea; and here lies the ground of the great
agreement between Plato and Kant, although, in strict
accuracy, that of which they speak is not the same. But the
particular things are no really adequate objectivity of the
will, for in them it is obscured by those forms whose general
expression is the principle of sufficient reason, but which are
conditions of the knowledge which belongs to the individual
as such. If it is allowable to draw conclusions from an im-
possible presupposition, we would, in fact, no longer know
particular things, nor events, nor change, nor multiplicity,
but would comprehend only Ideas, — only the grades of the
objectification of that one will, of the thing-in-itself, in pure

144 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

unclouded knowledge. Consequently our world would be a
nunc starts y if it were not that, as knowing subjects, we are
also individuals, i.e.y our perceptions come to us through the
medium of a body, from the affections of which they pro-
ceed, and which is itself only concrete willing, objectivity
of the will, and thus is an object among objects, and as such
comes into the knowing consciousness in the only way in
which an object can, through the forms of the principle
of sufficient reason, and consequently already presupposes,
and therefore brings in, time, and all other forms which
that principle expresses. Time is only the broken and piece-
meal view which the individual being has of the Ideas,
which are outside time, and consequently eternal. Therefore
Plato says time is the moving picture of eternity.

§ 33. Since now, as individuals, we have no other knowl-
edge than that which is subject to the principle of sufficient
reason, and this form of knowledge excludes the Ideas, it
is certain that if it is possible for us to raise ourselves from
the knowledge of particular things to that of the Ideas, this
can only happen by an alteration taking place in the subject"
which is analogous and corresponds to the great change of
the whole nature of the object, and by virtue of which the
subject, so far as it knows an Idea, is no more individual.

It will be remembered from the preceding book that
knowledge in general belongs to the objectification of will
at its higher grades, and sensibility, nerves, and brain, just
like the other parts of the organised being, are the expres-
sion of he will at this stage of its objectivity, and therefore
the idea which appears through them is also in the same
Way bound to the service of will as a mean {f^i^X^'^V)
for the attainment of its now complicated (^noXvieXeoieQa)
aims for sustaining a being of manifold requirements. Thu?
originally and according to its nature, knowledge is com-
))letely subject to the will, and, like the immediate object
which, by means of the application of the law of causality

THE WORLD AS IDEA 145

IS its starting-point, all knowledge which proceeds in accord-
ance with the principle of sufficient reason remains in a
closer or more distant relation to the will. For the individual
finds his body as an object among objects, to all of which
it is related and connected according to the principle of
sufficient reason. Thus all investigations of these relations
and connections lead back to his body, and consequently to
his will. Since it is the principle of sufficient reason which
places the objects in rhis relation to the boay, and, through
it, to the will, the one endeavour of the knowledge which
is subject to this principle will be to find out the relations in
which objects are placed to each other through this prin~
ciple, and thus to trace their innumerable connections in
space, time, and causality. For only through these is the ob-
ject interesting to the individual, i.e., related to the will.
Therefore the knowledge which is subject to the will knows
nothing further of objects than their relations, knows the
objects only so far as they exist at this time, in this place,
under these circumstances, from these causes, and with these
effects — in a word, as particular things; and if all these
relations were to be taken away, the objects would also have
disappeared for it, because it knew nothing more about them.
We must not disguise the fact that what the sciences con-
sider in things is also in reality nothing more than this; their
relations, the connections of time and space, the causes of
natural changes, the resemblance of forms, the motives of
actions, — thus merely relations. What distinguishes science
from ordinary knowledge is merely its systematic form, the
facilitating of knowledge by the comprehension of all par-
ticulars in the universal, by means of the subordination of
concepts, and the completeness of knowledge which is thereby
attained. All relation has itself only a relative existence; for
example, all being in time is also non-being; for time is only
that by means of which opposite determinations can belong
to the same thing; therefore every phenomenon which is in

140 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

time again is not, for what separates its beginning from its
end is only time, which is essentially a fleeting, inconstant,
and relative thing, here called duration. But time is the most
universal form of all subjects of the knowledge which is
subject to the will, and the prototype of its other forms.

Knowledge now, as a rule, remains always subordinate
to the service of the will, as indeed it originated for this
service, and grew, so to speak, to the will, as the head to
the body. In the case of the brutes this subjection of knowl-
edge to the will can never be abolished. In the case of men
it can be abolished only in exceptional cases, which we shall
presently consider more closely. This distinction between
man and brute is outwardly expressed by the difference of
the relation of the head to the body. In the case of the lower
brutes both are deformed: in all brutes the head is directed
towards the earth, where the objects of its will lie; even in
the higher species the head and the body are still far
more one than in the case of man, whose head seems freely
set upon his body, as if only carried by and not serving it.
This human excellence is exhibited in the highest degree
by the Apollo of Belvedere; the head of the god of the
Muses, with eyes fixed on the far distance, stands so freely
on his shoulders that it seems wholly delivered from the
body, and no more subject to its cares.

^ § 34. The transition which we have referred to as pos-
sible, but yet to be regarded as only exceptional, from the
common knowledge of particular things to the knowledge
of the Idea, takes place suddenly; for knowledge breaks
free from the service of the will, by the subject ceasing to
be merely individual, and thus becoming the pure will-less
subject of knowledge, which no longer traces relations in
accordance with the principle of sufficient reason, but rests
in fixed contemplation of the object presented to it, out of
its connection with all others, and rises into it.

If, raised by the power of the mind, a man relinquishes

THE WORLD AS IDEA 147

the common way of looking at things, gives up tracing,
under the guidance of the forms of the principle of sufficient
reason, their relations to each other, the final goal of which
is always a relation to his own will; if he thus ceases to
consider the where, the when, the why, and the whither of
things, and looks simply and solely at the zihat; if, further,
he does not allow abstract thought, the concepts of the rea-
son, to take possession of his consciousness, but, instead of
all this, gives the whole power of his mind to perception,
sinks himself entirely in this, and lets his whole conscious-
ness be filled with the quiet contemplation of the natural
object actually present, whether a landscape, a tree, a moun-
tain, a building, or whatever it may be; inasmuch as he
loses himself in this object (to use a pregnant German
idiom), i.e. J forgets even his individuality, his will, and only
continues to exist as the pure subject, the clear mirror of the
object, so that it is as if the object alone were there, without
any one to perceive it, and he can no longer separate the
perceivcr from the perception, but both have become one,
because the whole consciousness is filled and occupied with
one single sensuous picture; if thus the object has to such an
extent passed out of all relation to something outside it, and
the subject out of all relation to the will, then that which is
so known is no longer the particular thing as such; but it is
the Ideay the eternal form, the immediate objectivity of the
will at this grade; and, therefore, he who is sunk in this
perception is no longer individual, for in such perception the
individual has lost himself; but he is furey will-less, painless,
timeless subject of knowledge. This, which in itself is so
remarkable (which I well know confirms the saying that
originated with Thomas Paine, Du sublime au ridicule il
n*y a qu^un fas), will by degrees become clearer and less
surprising from what follows. It was this that was running
in Spinoza's mind when he wrote : Mens cetema esty quatenus

148 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

r^s sub cptem'itatis sfecie concifit (Eth. V. pr. 31, Schol.) *
In such contemplation the particular thing becomes at once
the Idea of its species, and the perceiving individual becomes
fure subject of knowledge. The individual, as such, knows
only particular things; the pure subject of knov^^ledge knows
only Ideas. For the individual is the subject of knowledge
in its relation to a definite particular manifestation of will,
and in subjection to this. This particular manifestation of
will is, as such, subordinated to the principle of sufficient
reason in all its forms; therefore, all knowledge which
relates itself to it also follows the principle of sufficient
reason, and no other kind of knowledge is fitted to be of
use to the will but this, which always consists merely of
relations to the object. The knowing individual as such, and
the particular things known by him, are always in some
place, at some time, and are links in the chain of causes and
effects. The pure subject of knowledge and his correlative,
the Idea, have passed out of all these forms of the principle
of sufficient reason: time, place, the individual that knows,
and the individual that is known, have for them no meaning.
When an individual knower has raised himself in the man-
ner described to be pure subject of knowledge, and at the
same time has raised the observed object to the Platonic Idea,
the world as idea appears complete and pure, and the full
objectification of the will takes place, for the Platonic Idea
alone is its adequate objectivity. The Idea includes, object
I and subject in like manner in itself, for they are its one
form; but in it they are absolutely of equal importance; for
)& the object is here, as elsewhere, simply the idea of the
subject, the subject, which passes entirely into the perceived
object has thus become this object itself, for the whole con-

1 1 also recommend the perusal of what Spinoza says in his Ethics
(Book II., Prop. 40, Schol. 2, and Book V., Props. 25-38), concern-
ing the cognitio tertii generis, sive intuitiva, in illustration of the
kind of knowledge we are considering, and very specially Prop. 29,
Bchol.; Prop. 36, Schol., and Prop. 38, Demonst. et SchoL

THE WORLD AS IDE.^ 149

sciousness is nothing but its perfectly distinct picture. Now
this consciousness constitutes the whole world as idea^ for
one imagines the whole of the Platonic Ideas, or grades of
the objectivity of will, in their series passing through it. The
particular things of all time and space are nothing but Ideas
multiplied through the principle of sufficient reason (the
form of the knowledge of the individual as such), and thus
obscured as regards their pure objectivity. When the Platonic
Idea appears, in it subject and object are no longer to be
distinguished, for the Platonic Idea, the adequate objectivity
of will, the true world as idea, arises only when the subject
and object reciprocally fill and penetrate each other com-
cktely; and in the same way the knowing and the known
individuals, as things in themselves, are not to be distin-
guished. For if we look entirely away from the true world
as ideay there remains nothing but the world as will. The
will is the "in-itself" of the Platonic Idea, which fully
objectifies it; it is also the "in-itself" of the particular thing
and of the individual that knows it, which objectify it in-
com.pletely. As will, outside the idea and all its forms, it
is one and the same in the object contemplated and in the
individual, who soars aloft in this contemplation, and be-
comes conscious of himself as pure subject. These two are,
therefore, in themselves not different, for in themselves they
are will, which here knows itself; and multiplicity and dif-
ference exist only as the way in which this knowledge comes
to the will, i.e.y only in the phenomenon, on account of it5
form, the principle of sufficient reason.

Now the known thing, without me as the subject of
knowledge, is just as little an object, and not mere will,
blind efiPort, as without the object, without the idea. I am a
knowing subject and not mere blind will. This will is in it-
self, i.e., outside the idea, one and the same with mine: only
in the world as idea, whose form is always at least that
of subject and object, we are separated as the known and the

T50 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

knowing individual. As soon as knowledge, the world as
idea, is abolished, there remains nothing but mere will, blind
effort. That it should receive objectivity, become idea, sup-
poses at once both subject and object; but that this should be
pure, complete, and adequate objectivity of the will, sup-
poses the object as Platonic Idea, free from the forms of the
principle of sufficient reason, and the subject as the pure sub-
ject of knowledge, free from individuality and subjection to
the will.

Whoever now, has, after the manner referred to, become
so absorbed and lost in the perception of nature that he only
continues to exist as the pure knowing subject, becomes in
this way directly conscious that, as such, he is the condition,
that is, the supporter, of the world and all objective exist-
ence; for this now shows itself as dependent upon his exist-
ence. Thus he draws nature into himself, so that he sees it
to be merely an accident of his own being. In this sense
Byron says —

"Are not the mountains, waves, and skies, a part
Of me and of my soul, as I of them?"

But how shall he who feels this, regard himself as absolutely
transitory, in contrast to imperishable nature? Such a man
will rather be filled with the consciousness, which the
Upanishads of the Vedas express: Hcb omnes creatures in
totutn ego suTUy et frceter me aliud ens non est, (Oupnek'hat,
i. 22)}

§ 35. In order to gain a deeper insight into the nature of
the world, it is absolutely necessary that we should learn to
distinguish the will as thing-in-itself from its adequate ob-
jectivity, and also the different grades in which this appears
more and more distinctly and fully, i.e.y the Ideas them-
selves, from the merely phenomenal existence of these Ideas

^ Cf. Chap. XXX. of the Supplement. "I am all these creatures in
toto and beside me there is nothincj."

THE WORLD AS IDEA 151

in the forms of the principle of sufficient reason, the re-
stricted method of knowledge of the individual. We shall
then agree with Plato when he attributes actual being only
to the Ideas, and allows only an illusive, dream-like existence
to things in space and time, the real world for the individual.
Then we shall understand how one and the same Idea reveals
itself in so many phenomena, and presents its nature only bit
by bit to the individual, one side after another. Then we
shall also distinguish the Idea itself from the way in which
its manifestation appears in the observation of the individual,
and recognise the former as essential and the latter as un-
essential. Let us consider this with the help of examples
taken from the most insignificant things, and also from the
greatest. When the clouds move, the figures which they form
are not essential, but indifferent to them; but that as elastic
vapour they are pressed together, drifted along, spread out,
or torn asunder by the force of the wind: this is their nature,
the essence of the forces which objectify themselves in them,
the Idea; their actual forms are only for the individual ob-
server. To the brook that flows over stones, the eddies, the
waves, the foam-flakes which it forms are indifferent and
unessential; but that it follows the attraction of gravity,
and behaves as inelastic, perfectly mobile, formless, trans-
parent fluid: this is its nature; this, if known through fer-
ceftiony is its Idea; these accidental forms are only for us so
long as we know as individuals. The ice on the window-pane
forms itself into crystals according to the laws of crystallisa-
tion, which reveal the essence of the force of nature that
appears here, exhibit the Idea; but the trees and flowers
which it traces on the pane are unessential, and are only there
for us. What appears in the clouds, the brook, and the ciystal
is the weakest echo of that will which appears more fully in
the plant, more fully still in the beast, and most fully in
man. But only the essential in all these grades of its objectifi-
cation constitutes the Idea; on the other hand, its unfolding

C52 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

or development, because broken up in the forms of the
principle of sufficient reason into a multiplicity of many-
sided phenomena, is unessential to the Idea, lies merely in
the kind of knowledge that belongs to the individual and
has reality only for this. The same thing necessarily holds
good of the unfolding of that Idea w^hich is the completest
objectivity of w^ill. Therefore, the history of the human
race, the throng of events, the change of times, the multi-
farious forms of human life in different lands and countries,
all this is only the accidental form of the manifestation of
the Idea, does not belong to the Idea itself, in which alone
lies the adequate objectivity of the will, but only to the
phenomenon which appears in the knowledge of the indi-
vidual, and is just as foreign, unessential, and indifferent to
the Idea itself as the figures which they assume are to the
clouds, the form of its eddies and foam-flakes to the brook,
or its trees and flowers to the ice.

To him who has thoroughly grasped this, and can dis-
tinguish between the will and the Idea, and between the
Idea and its manifestation, the events of the world will have
significance only so far as they are the letters out of which
we may read the Idea of man, but not in and for themselves.
He will not believe with the vulgar that time may produce
something actually new and significant; that through it, or
in it, something absolutely real may attain to existence, or
indeed that it itself as a whole has beginnng and end, plan
and development, and in some way has for its final aim the
highest perfection (according to their conception) of the last
generation of man, whose life is a brief thirty years. There-
fore he will just as little, with Homer, people a whole
Olympus with gods to guide the events of time, as, with
Ossian, he will take the forms of the clouds for individual
beings; for, as we have said, both have just as much mean-
ing as regards the Idea which appears in them. In the mani-
fold forms of human life and in the unceasing change of

THE WORLD AS IDEA 153

events, he will regard the Idea only as the abiding and es-
sential, in which the will to live has its fullest objectivity,
and which shows its different sides in the capacities, the pas-
sions, the errors and the excellences of the human race; in
self-interest, hatred, love, fear, boldness, frivolity, stupidity,
slyness, wit, genius, and so forth, all of which crowding to-
gether and combining in thousands of forms (individuals),
continually create the history of the great and the little
world, in which it is all the same whether they are set in
motion by nuts or by crowns. Finally, he will find that in
the world it is the same as in the dramas of Gozzi, in all of
which the same persons appear, with like intention, and with
a like fate; the motives and incidents are certainly different
in each piece, but the spirit of the incidents is the same; the
actors in one piece know nothing of the incidents of an-
other, although they performed in it themselves; therefore,
after all experience of former pieces. Pantaloon has become
no more agile or generous, Tartaglia no more conscientious,
Brighella no more courageous, and Columbine no mora
modest.

Suppose we were allowed for once a clearer glance
into the kingdom of the possible, and over the whole chain
of causes and effects; if the earth-spirit appeared and
showed us in a picture all the greatest men, enlighteners of
the world, and heroes, that chance destroyed before they
were ripe for their work; then the great events that would
have changed the history of the world and brought in periods
of the highest culture and enlightenment, but which the
blindest chance, the most insignificant accident, hindered at
the outset; lastly, the splendid powers of great men, that
would have enriched whole ages of the world, but which,
either misled by error or passion, or compelled by necessity,
they squandered uselessly on unworthy or unfruitful ob-
jects, or even wasted in play. If we saw all this, we would
shudder and lament at the thought of the lost treasures of

154 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

whole periods of the world. But the earth-spirit would smile
and say, "The source from which the individuals and their
powers proceed is inexhaustible and unending as time and
space; for, like these forms of all phenomena, they also are
only phenomena, visibility of the will. No finite measure
can exhaust that infinite source; therefore an undiminished
eternity is always open for the return of any event or work
that was nipped in the bud. In this world of phenomena true
loss is just as little possible as true gain. The will alone is;
it is the thing-in-itself , and the source of all these phenomena.
Its self-knowledge and its assertion or denial, which is then
decided upon, is the only event-in-itself ." ^

§ 36. History follows the thread of events; it is prag-
matic so far as it deduces them in accordance with the law
of motivation, a law that determines the self-manifesting
will wherever it is enlightened by knowledge. At the lowest
grades of its objectivity, where it still acts without knowl-
edge, natural science, in the form of etiology, treats of the
laws of the changes of its phenomena, and, in the form of
morphology, of what is permanent in them. This almost
endless task is lightened by the aid of concepts, which com-
prehend what is general in order that we may deduce what
is particular from it. Lastly, mathematics treats of the mere
forms, time and space, in which the Ideas, broken up into
multiplicity, appear for the knowledge of the subject as in-
dividual. All these, of which the common name is science,
proceed according to the principle of sufficient reason in its
different forms, and their theme is always the phenomenon,
its laws, connections, and the relations which result from
them. But what kind of knowledge is concerned with that
which is outside and independent of all relations, that which
alone is really essential to the world, the true content of itt
phenomena, that which is subject to no change, and there«

^ This last sentence cannot be understood without some acquaints
ance with the next book.

THE WORLD AS IDEA 155

fore is known with equal truth for all time, in a -vc^ord, the
IdeaSy which are the direct and adequate objectivity of the
thing-in-itself, the will? We answer, Art, the work of
genius. It repeats or reproduces the eternal Ideas grasped
through pure contemplation, the essential and abiding in all
the phenomena of the world; and according to what the
material is in which it reproduces, it is sculpture or painting,
poetry or music. Its one source is the knowledge of Ideas; its
one aim the communication of this knowledge. While sci-
ence, following the unresting and inconstant stream of the
fourfold forms of reason and consequent, with each end
attained sees further, and can never reach a final groal nor
attain full satisfaction, any more than by running we can
reach the place where the clouds touch the horizon; art, on
the contrary, is everywhere at its goal. For it plucks the ob-
ject of its contemplation out of the stream of the world's
course, and has it isolated before it. And th"s particular
thing, which in that stream was a small perishing part, be-
comes to art the representative of the whole, an equivalent
of the endless multitude in space and time. It therefore
pauses at this particular thing; the course of time stops; the
relations vanish for it; only the essential, the Idea, is its
object. We may, therefore, accurately define it as the way
of viewing things independent of the frincifle of suficient
reason, in opposition to the way of viewing them which pro-
ceeds in accordance with that principle, and which is the
method of experience and of science. This last method of
considering things may be compared to a line infinitely ex-
tended in a horizontal direction, and the former to a vertical
line which cuts it at any point. The method of viewing
things which proceeds in accordance with the principle of
suflScient reason is the rational method, and it alone is valid
and of use in practical life and in science. The method which
looks away from the content of this principle is the method
of genius, which is only valid and of use in art. The first is
the method of Aristotlei^ the second is, on the whole, that of

156 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

Plato. The first is like the mighty storm, that rushes along
without beginning and without aim, bending, agitating, and
carrying away everything before it; the second is like the
silent sunbeam, that pierces through the storm quite unaf-
fected by it. The first is like the innumerable showering
irops of the waterfall, which, constantly changing, never
rest for an instant; the second is like the rainbow, quietly
resting on this raging torrent. Only through the pure con-
templation described above, which ends entirely in the ob-
ject, can Ideas be comprehended; and the nature of genius
consists in pre-eminent capacity for such contemplation.
Now, as this requires that a man should entirely forget him-
self and the relations in which he stands, genius is simply the
completest objectivity, i.e., the objective tendency of the
mind, as opposed to the subjective, which is directed to one's
own self — in other words, to the will. Thus genius is the
faculty of continuing in the state of pure perception, of los-
ing oneself in perception, and of enlisting in this service the
knowledge which originally existed only for the service of
the will ; that is to say, genius is the power of leaving one's
own interests, wishes, and aims entirely out of sight, thus of
entirely renouncing one's own personality for a time, so as
to remain fure knowing subject, clear vision of the world;
and this not merely at moments, but for a sufficient length
of time, and with sufficient consciousness, to enable one to
reproduce by deliberate art what has thus been apprehended,
and "to fix in lasting thoughts the wavering images that float
before the mind." It is as if, when genius appears in an in-
dividual, a far larger measure of the power of knowledge
falls to his lot than is necessary for the service of an indi-
vidual will; and this superfluity of knowledge, being free,
now becomes subject purified from will, a clear mirror of
the inner nature of the world. This explains the activity,
amounting even to disquietude, of men of genius, for the
present can seldom satisfy them, because it does not fill their
consciousness. This gives them that restless aspiration, that

THE WORLD AS IDEA 15]

finceasing desire for new things, and for the contemplation
')f lofty things, and also that longing that is hardly ever
iiatisfied, for men of similar nature and of like stature, to
Ivhom they might communicate themselves; whilst the com-
mon mortal, entirely filled and satisfied by the commop
present, ends in it, and finding everywhere his like, cri''
joys that peculiar satisfaction in daily life that is denied t<?
genius.

Imagination has rightly been recognised as an essential
element of genius; it has sometimes even been regarded asi
identical with it; but this is a mistake. As the objects of
genius are the eternal Ideas, the permanent, essential forms
of the world and all its phenomena, and as the knowledge
of the Idea is necessarily knowledge through perception, is
not abstract, the knowledge of the genius would be limited
to the Ideas of the objects actually present to his person, and
dependent upon the chain of circiimstances that brought these
objects to him, if his imagination did not extend his horizon
far beyond the limits of his actual personal existence, and
thus enable him to construct the whole out of the little that
comes into his own actual apperception, and so to let almost
all possible scenes of life pass before him in his own con-*
sciousness. Further, the actual objects are almost always very
imperfect copies of the Ideas expressed in them; therefore
the man of genius requires imagination in order to see in
things, not that which Nature has actually made, but that
which she endeavoured to make, yet could not because of
that conflict of her forms among themselves which we re*
ferred to m the last book. We shall return to this farther on
in treating of sculpture. The imagination then extends thi
intellectual horizon of the man of genius beyond the objecti
which actually present themselves to him, both as regards
quality and quantity. Therefore extraordinary strength of
imagination accompanies, and is indeed a necessary condi-
tion of genius. But the converse does not hold, for strength;

158 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER ^

of imagination does not indicate genius; on the contrary,
men who have no touch of genius may have much imagina-
tion. For as it is possible to consider a real object in two
opposite ways, purely objectively, the way of genius grasping
its Idea, or in the common way, merely in the relations in
which it stands to other objects and to one's own will, in ac-
cordance with the principle of sufficient reason, it is also
possible to perceive an imaginary object in both of these
ways. Regarded in the first way, it is a means to the knowl-
edge of the Idea, the communication of which is the work
of art; in the second case, the imaginary object is used to
build castles in the air congenial to egotism and the indi-
vidual humour, and which for the moment delude and
gratify; thus only the relations of the phantasies so linked
together are known. The man who indulges in such an
amusement is a dreamer; he will easily mingle those fancies
that delight his solitude with reality, and so unfit himself for
real life: perhaps he will write them down, and then we shall
have the ordinary novel of every description, which enter-
tains those who are like him and the public at large, for the
readers imagine themselves in the place of the hero, and then
find the story very agreeable.

1'he common mortal, that manufacture of Nature which
she produces by the thousand every day, is, as we have said,
not capable, at least not continuously so, of observation that
in every sense is wholly disinterested, as sensuous contempla-
tion, strictly so called, is. He can turn his attention to things
only so far as they have some relation to his will, however
indirect it may be. Since in this respect, which never demands
anything but the knowledge of relations, the abstract con-
ception of the thing is sufficient, and for the most part even
better adapted for use; the ordinary man does not linger
long over the mere perception, does not fix his attention lon^o
on one object, but in all that is presented to him hastily seeks
merely the concept under which it is to be brought, as the

THE WORLD AS IDEA 159

lazy man seeks a chair, and then it interests him no further.
This is why he is so soon done with everything, with works
of art, objects of natural beauty, and indeed everywhere
with the truly significant contemplation of all the scenes of
life. He does not linger; only seeks to know his own way in
life, together with all that might at any time become his
way. Thus he makes topographical notes in the widest sense;
over the consideration of life itself as such he wastes no time.
The man of genius, on the other hand, whose excessive
power of knowledge frees it at times from the service of
will, dwells on the consideration of life itself, sfnves to
comprehend the Idea of each thing, not its relations to other
things; and in doing this he often forgets to consider his
own path in life, and therefore for the most part pursues it
awkwardly enough. While to the ordinary man his faculty
of knowledge is a lamp to lighten his path, to the man of
genius it is the sun which reveals the world. This great di-
versity in their way of looking at life soon becomes visible
in the outward appearance both of the man of genius and of
the ordinary mortal. The man in whom genius lives and
works is easily distinguished by his glance, which is both
keen and steady, and bears the stamp of perception, of con-
templation. This is easily seen from the likenesses of the
few men of genius whom Nature has produced here and
there among countless millions. On the other hand, in the
case of an ordinary man, the true object of his contempla-
tion, what he is prying into, can be easily seen from his
glance, if indeed it is not quite stupid and vacant, as is gen-
erally the case. Therefore the expression of genius in a face
consists in this, that in it a decided predominance of knowl-
edge over will is visible, and consequently there also shows
itself in it a knowledge that is entirely devoid of relation to
will, i.e., fare knowing. On the contrary, in ordinary coun-
tenances there is a predominant expression of will; and w«

i6o THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

see that knowledge only comes into activity under the im-
pulse of will, and thus is directed merely by motives.

§ 37. Genius, then, consists, according to our explanation,
Cjn the capacity for knowing, independently of the principle
of sufficient reason, not individual things, which have their
existence only in their relations, but the Ideas of such things,
and of being oneself the correlative of the Idea, and thus
no longer an individual, but the pure subject of knowledge.
Vet this faculty must exist in all men in a smaller and dif-
ferent degree; for if not, they would be just as incapable of
enjoymg woiks of art as of producing them- they would
have no susceptibility for the beautiful or the sublime; in-
deed, these words could have no meaning for them. We
must therefore assume that there exists in all men this power
of knowing tne Ideas in things, and consequently of tran-
scending their personality for the moment, unless indeed
there are some men who are capable of no aesthetic pleasure
at all. The man of genius excels ordinary men only by pos-
sessing this kind of knowledge in a far higher degree and
mere continuously. Thus, while under its influence he re-
tains the presence of mind which is necessary to enable him
to repeat in a voluntary and intentional work what he has
learned in this manner; and this repetition is the work of
.%rt. Through this he communicates to others the Idea he has
grasped. This Idea remains unchanged and the same, so that
•esthetic pleasure is one and the same whether it is called
forth by a work of art or directly by the contemplation of
nature and life. The work of art is only a means of facili-
tating the knowledge in which this pleasure consists. That
the Idea comes to us more easily from the work of art than
directly from nature and the real world, arises from ths
fact that the artist, who knew only the Idea, no longer the
actual, has reproduced in his work the pure Idea, has ab-
stracted it from the actual, omitting all disturbing accidents.
The artist lets us see the world through his eyes. That he has

THE WORLD AS IDEA i6i

these eyes, that he knows the inner nature of things apart
from all their relations, is the gift of genius, is inborn; but
that he is able to lend us this gift, to let us see with his eyes,
is acquired, and is the technical side of art. Therefore, after
the account which I have given in the preceding pages of
the inner nature of assthetical knowledge in its most general
outlines, the following more exact philosophical treatment
of the beautiful and the sublime will explain them both, in
nature and in art, without separating them further. First of
all we shall consider what takes place in a man when he is
aifected by the beautiful and the sublime; whether he de-
rives this emotion directly from nature, from life, or par-
takes of it only through the medium of art, does not make
any essential, but merely an external, difference.

§ 38. In the jesthetical mode of contemplation we have
found two inseparable constituent farts — the knowledge of
the object, not as individual thing but as Platonic Idea, that
is, as the enduring form of this whole species of things ; and
the self -consciousness of the knowing person, not as in-
dividual, but as pure will-less subject of knowledge. The
condition under which both these constituent parts appear
always united was found to be the abandonment of the
method of knowing which is bound to the principle of suf-
ficient reason, and which, on the other hand, is the only
kind of knowledge that is of value for the service of the
will and also for science. Moreover, we shall see that the
pleasure which is produced by the contemplation of the beau-
tiful arises from these two constituent parts, sometimes more
from the one, sometimes more from the other, according to
what the object of the sesthetical contemplation may be.

All willing arises from want, therefore from deficiency,
and therefore from suffering. The satisfaction of a wish
ends it; yet for one wish that is satisfied there remain at
least ten which are denied. Further, the desire lasts long,
the demands are infinite; the satisfaction is short and scantily

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i62 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER »

measured out. But even the final satisfaction is if-;elf only
apparent ; every satisfied wish at once makes room for a new
one; both are illusions; the one is known to be so, the other
not yet. No attained object of desire can give lasting satis-
faction, but merely a fleeting gratification; it is like the
alms thrown to the beggar, that keeps him alive to-day that
his misery may be prolonged till the morrow. Therefore, so
long as our consciousness is filled by our will, so long as we
are given up to the throng of desires with their constant
hopes and fears, so long as we are the subject of willing, we
can never have lasting happiness nor peav,e. It is essentially
all the same whether we pursue or flee, fear injury or seek
enjoyment; the care for the constant demands of the will,
in whatever form it may be, continually occupies and sways
the consciousness; but without peace no true well-being is
possible. The subject of willing is thus constantly stretched
on the revolving wheel of Ixion, pours water into the sieve
of the Danaids, is the ever-longing Tantalus.

But when some external cause or inward disposition lifts
us suddenly out of the endless stream of willing, delivers
knowledge from the slavery of the will, the attention is no
longer directed to the motives of willing, but comprehends
things free from their relation to the will, and thus observes
them without personal interest, without subjectivity, purely
objectively, gives itself entirely up to them so far as they
are ideas, but not in so far as they are motives. Then all at
once the peace which we were always seeking, but which
always fled from us on the former path of the desires, comes
to us of its own accord, and it is well with us. It is the pain-
less state which Epicurus prized as the highest good and as
the state of the gods; for we are for the moment set free
from the miserable striving of the will ; we keep the Sabbath
of the penal servitude of willing; the wheel of Ixion stands
Still.

But this is just the state which I described above as neces-

THE WORLD AS IDEA 163

sary for the knowledge of the Idea, as pure contemplation,
as sinking oneself in perception, losing oneself in the ob-
ject, forgetting all individuality, surrendering that kind of
knowledge which follows the principle of sufficient reason,
and comprehends only relations; the state by means of
which at once and inseparably the perceived particular thing
is raised to the Idea of its whole species, and the knowing
individual to the pure subject of will-less knowledge, and a?
such they are both taken out of the stream of time and all
other relations. It is then all one whether we see the sun set
from the prison or from the palace.

Inward disposition, the predominance of knowing over
willing, can produce this state under any circumstances.
This is shown by those admirable Dutch artists who directed
this purely objective perception to the most insignificant ob-
jects, and established a lasting monument of their objectivity
and spiritu il peace in their pictures of still Itfe^ which the
aesthetic beholder does not look on without emotion; for
they present to him the peaceful, still, frame of mind of the
artist, free from will, which was needed to contemplate
such insignificant things so objectively, to observe them so
attentively, and to repeat this perception so intelligently;
and as the picture enables the onlooker to participate in
this state, his emotion is often increased by the contrast bc-
' tween it and the unquiet frame of mind, disturbed by vehe-
ment willing, in which he finds himself. In the same spirit,
landscape-painters, and particularly Ruisdael, have often
painted very insignificant country scenes, which produce the
same effect even more agreeably.

All this is accomplished by the inner power of an artistic
nature alone; but that purely objective disposition is facili-
tated and assisted from without by suitable objects, by the
abundance of natural beauty which invites contemplation,
and even presses itself upon us. Whenever it discloses itself
suddenly to our view, it almost always succeeds in delivering

«64 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

us, though it may be only for a moment, from subjectivity,
from the slavery of the will, and in raising us to the state
of pure knowing. This is why the man who is tormented by
passion, or want, or care, is so suddenly revived, cheered,
and restored by a single free glance into nature: the storm
of passion, the pressure of desire and fear, and all the miser-
ies of willing are then at once, and in a marvellous manner,
calmed and appeased. For at the moment at which, freed
from the will, we give ourselves up to pure will-less know-
ing, we pass into a world from which everything is absent
that influenced our will and moved us so violently through
it. This freeing of knowledge lifts us as wholly and en-
tirely away from all that, as do sleep and dreams; happiness
and unhappiness have disappeared; we are no longer in-
dividual ; the individual is forgotten ; we are only pure sub^
ject of knowledge; we are only that one eye of the world
which looks out from all knowing creatures, but which can
become perfectly free from the service of will in man alone.
Thus all difference of individuality so entirely disappears,
that it is all the same whether the perceiving eye belongs to
a mighty king or to a wretched beggar; for neither joy nor
complaining can pass that boundary with us. So near us al-
ways lies a sphere in which we escape from all our misery;
but who has the strength to continue long in it? As soon as
any single relation to our will, to our person, even of these
objects of our pure contemplation, comes again into con-
sciousness, the magic is at an end; we fall back into the
knowledge which is governed by the principle of suflficient
reason; we know no longer the Idea, but the particular
thing, the link of a chain to which we also belong, and we
are again abandoned to all our woe. Most men remain al-
most always at this st?»ndpoint because they entirely lack ob-
jectivity, i.e.y genius. Therefore they have no pleasure in
being alone with nature; they need company, or at least a
.book. F^r their knowledge remains subject to their will;

THE WORLD AS IDEA 165

they seek, therefore, in objects, only some relation to their
will, and whenever they see anything that has no such rela-
tion, there sounds within them, like a ground bass in music,
the constant inconsolable cry, "It is of no use to me"; thus
in solitude the most beautiful surroundings have for them a
desolate, dark, strange, and hostile appearance.

Lastly, it is this blessedness of will-less perception which
casts an enchanting glamour over the past and distant, and
presents them to us in so fair a light by means of self-
deception. For as we think of days long gone by, days in
which we lived in a distant place, it is only the objects which
our fancy recalls, not the subject of will, which bore about
with it then its incurable sorrows just as it bears them now;
but they are forgotten, because since then they have often
given place to others. Now, objective perception acts with
regard to what is remembered just as it would in what iy
present, if we let it have influence over us, if we surrendered
ourselves to it free from will. Hence it arises that, especially
when we are more than ordinarily disturbed by some want,
the remembrance of past and distant scenes suddenly flits
across our minds like a lost paradise. The fancy recalls only
what was objective, not what was individually subjective,
and v/e imagine that that objective stood before us then jusl
as pure and undisturbed by any relation to the will as its
image stands in our fancy now; while in reality the relation
of the objects to our will gave us pain then just as it does
now. We can deliver ourselves from all suffering just as
well through present objects as through distant ones when-
ever we raise ourselves to a purely objective contemplation
of them, and so are able to bring about the illusion that only
the objects are present and not we ourselves. Then, as the
pure subject of knowledge, freed from the miserable self,
we become entirely one with these objects, and, for the mor
went, our wants are as foreign to us as they are to them

i66 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER '"

IThe world as idea alone remains, and the world as will has
disappeared.

§ 39. All these reflections are intended to bring out the
subjective part of aesthetic pleasure; that is to say, that pleas-
ure so far as it consists simply of delight in perceptive knowl-
edge as such, in opposition to will. And as directly connected
with this, there naturally follows the explanation of that
disposition or frame of mind which has been called the sense
of the sublime.

We have already remarked above that the transition to
the state of pure perception takes place most easily when the
objects bend themselves to it, that is, when by their mani-
fold and yet dejfinite and distinct form they easily become
^Representatives of their Ideas, in which beauty, in the objec-
tive sense, consists. This quality belongs pre-eminently to
natural beauty, which thus affords even to the most insensible
at least a fleeting aesthetic satisfaction: indeed it is so re-
markable how especially the vegetable world invites aesthetic
observation, and, as it were, presses itself upon it, that one
might say, that these advances are connected with the fact
that these organisms, unlike the bodies of animals, are not
themselves immediate objects of knowledge, and therefore
require the assistance of a foreign intelligent individual in
order to rise out of the world of blind will and enter the
world of idea, and that thus they long, as it were, for this
entrance, that they may attain at least indirectly what is de-
nied them directly. But I leave this suggestion which I have
hazarded, and which borders perhaps upon extravagance, en-
tirely undecided, for only a very intimate and devoted con-
sideration of nature can raise or justify it.^ As long as that

1 I am all the more delighted and astonished, forty years aftei
I so timidly and hesitatingly advanced this thought, to discover
that it has already been expressed by St. Augustine: Arbusta formas
suas varias, quibus mundi hujus visibilis structura formosa est, sen^
Uendas sensibus prabent; ut, pro eo quod nosse non possunt, quasi
INNOTESCERE vclle videantiiT. — Dc civ. Dei, xi, 27.

THE WORLD AS IDEA 167

which raises us from the knowledge of mere relations sub-
ject to the will, to aesthetic contemplation, and thereby exalts
us to the position of the subject of knowledge free from
will, is this fittingness of nature, this significance and dis-
tinctness of its forms, on account of v/hich the Ideas indi-
vidualised in them readily present themselves to us; so long
is it merely beauty that affects us and the sense of the beauti-
ful that is excited. But if these very objects whose significant
forms invite us to pure contemplation, have a hostile relation
to the human will in general, as it exhibits itself in its
objectivity, the human body, if they are opposed to it, so
that it is menaced by the irresistible predominance of their
power, or sinks into insignificance before their immeasur-
able greatness; if, nevertheless, the beholder does not direct
his attention to this eminently hostile relation to his will,
but, although perceiving and recognising it, turns consciously
away from it, forcibly detaches himself from his will and
its relations, and, giving himself up entirely to knowledge,
quietly contemplates those very objects that are so terrible
to the will, comprehends only their Idea, which is foreign
to all relation, so that he lingers gladly over its contempla-
tion, and is thereby raised above himself, his person, his will^
and all will: — in that case he is filled with the sense of the
sublime^ he is in the state of spiritual exaltation, and there-
fore the object producing such a state is called sublime. Thus
what distinguishes the sense of the sublime from that of the
beautiful is this: in the case of the beautiful, pure knowl-
edge has gained the upper hand without a struggle, for the
beauty of the object, i.e., that property which facilitates
the knowledge of its Idea, has removed from consciousness
without resistance, and therefore imperceptibly, the will and
the knowledge of relations which is subject to it, so that
what is left is the pure subject of knowledge without even a
remembrance of will. On the other hand, in the case of the.
sublime that state of pure knowledge is only attained by a

i68 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

conscious and forcible breaking away from the relations of
the same object to the will, which are recognised as unfa-
vourable, by a free and conscious transcending of the will
and the knowledge related to it.

This exaltation must not only be consciously won, but
also consciously retained, and it is therefore accompanied by
a constant remembrance of will; yet not of a single par-
ticular volition, such as fear or desire, but of human volition
in general, so far as it is universally expressed in its objec-
tivity the human body. If a single real act of will were to
come into consciousness, through actual personal pressure
and danger from the object, then the individual will thus
actually influenced would at once gain the upper hand, the
peace of contemplation would become impossible, the im-
pression of the sublime would be lost, because it yields to the
anxiety, in which the effort of the individual to right itself
has sunk eveiy other thought. A few examples will help
very much to elucidate this theory to the aesthetic sublime
and remove all doubt with regard to it; at the same time
they will bring out the different degrees of this sense of the
vublime. It is in the main identical with that of the beautiful,
with pure will-less knowing, and the knowledge, that neces-
sarily accompanies it of Ideas out of all relation determined
by the principle of sufficient reason, and it is distinguished
from the sense of the beautiful only by the additional quality
that it rises above the known hostile relation of the object
contemplated to the will in general. Thus there come to be
various degrees of the sublime, and transitions from the
beautiful to the sublime, according as this additional quality
is strong, bold, urgent, near, or weak, distant, and merely
indicated. I think it is more in keeping with the plan of my
treatise, first to give examples of these transitions, and of
the weaker degrees of the impression of the sublime, al-
though persons whose assthetical susceptibility in general is
not very great, and whose imagination is not very lively, will

THE WORLD AS IDEA 169

only understand the examples given later of the higher and
more distinct grades of that impression; and they should
therefore confine themselves to these, and pass over the ex-
amples of the very wtak degrees of the sublime that are to
be given first.

As man is at once impetuous and blind striving of will
(whose pole or focus lies in the genital organs), and eternal,
free, serene subject of pure knowing (whose pole is the
brain); so, corresponding to this antithesis, the sun is both
the source of light, the condition of the most perfect kind
of knowledge, and therefore of the most delightful of
things — and the source of wartnth, the first condition oi
life, i.e., of all phenomena of will in its higher grades
Therefore, what warmth is for the will, light is for knowl'
edge. Light is the largest gem in the crown of beauty, and
has the most marked influence on the knowledge of every
beautiful object. Its presence is an indispensable condition
of beauty; its favourable disposition increases the beauty
of the most beautiful. Architectural beauty more than any
other object is enhanced by favourable light, though even
the most insignificant things become through its influence
most beautiful. If, in the dead of winter, when all nature
is frozen and stiff, we see the rays of the setting sun re-»
fleeted by masses of stone, illuminating without warmings
and thus favourable only to the purest kind of knowledge,
not to the will; the contemplation of the beautiful effect
of the light upon these masses lifts us, as does all beauty,
into a state of pure knowing. But, in this case, a certain
transcending of the interests of the will is needed to enable
us to rise into the state of pure knowing, because there is a
faint recollection of the lack of warmth from these rays,
that is, an absence of the principle of life; there is a slight
challenge to persist in pure knowing, and to refrain from
all willing, and therefore it is an example of a transition
from the sense of the beautiful to that of the sublime. It is

170 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

the faintest trace of the sublime in the beautiful; and beauty
itself is indeed present only in a slight degree. The follow-
ing is almost as weak an example.

Let us imagine ourselves transported to a very lonely place,
with unbroken horizon, under a cloudless sky, trees and
plants in the perfectly motionless air, no animals, no men,
no running water, the deepest silence. Such surroundings
are, as it were, a call to seriousness and contemplation, apart
from all will and its cravings; but this is just what imparts
to such a scene of desolate stillness a touch of the sublime.
For, because it affords no object, either favourable or un-
favourable, for the will which is constantly in need of striv-
ing and attaining, there only remains the state of pure
contemplation, and whoever is incapable of this, is igno-
miniously abandoned to the vacancy of unoccupied will,
and the misery of ennui. So far it is a test of our intellectual
worth, of which, generally speaking, the degree of our
power of enduring solitude, or our love of it, is a good
criterion. The scene we have sketched affords us, then, an
example of the sublime in a low degree, for in it, with the
State of pure knowing in its peace and all-sufficiency, there
is mingled, by way of contrast, the recollection of the de-
pendence and poverty of the will which stands in need of
constant action. This is the species of the sublime for which
the sight of the boundless prairies of the interior of North
America is celebrated.

But let us suppose such a scene, stripped also of vegeta-
tion, and showing only naked rocks; then from the entire
absence of that organic life which is necessary for existence,
the will at once becomes uneasy, the desert assumes a ter-
rible aspect, our mood becomes more tragic; the elevation to
the sphere of pure knowing takes place with a more decided
tearing of ourselves away from the interests of the will;
and because we persist in continuing in the state of pure
knowing, the sense of the sublime distinctly appears.

THE WORLD AS IDEA 171

The following situation may occasion this feeling in a
still higher degree: Nature convulsed by a storm; the sky
darkened by black threatening thunder-clouds; stupendous,
naked, overhanging cliffs, completely shutting out the view^;
rushing, foaming torrents; absolute desert; the wail of the
wind sweeping through the clefts of the rocks. Our depend-
ence, our strife with hostile nature, our will broken in the
conflict, now appears visibly before our eyes. Yet, so long as
the personal pressure does not gain the upper hand, but
we continue in aesthetic contemplation, the pure subject of
knowing gazes unshaken and unconcerned through that
strife of nature, through that picture of the broken will, and
quietly comprehends the Ideas even of those objects which
are threatening and terrible to the will. In this contrast lies
the sense of the sublime.

But the impression becomes still stronger, if, when we
have before our eyes, on a large scale, the battle of the rag-
ing elements, in such a scene we are prevented from hearing
the sound of our own voice by the noise of a falling stream;
or, if we are abroad in the storm of tempestuous seas, where
the mountainous waves rise and fall, dash themselves furi-
ously against steep cliffs, and toss their spray high into the
air; the storm howls, the sea boils, the lightning flashes from
black clouds, and the peals of thunder drown the voice of
storm and sea. Then, in the undismayed beholder, the two-
fold nature of his consciousness reaches the highest degree
of distinctness. He perceives himself, on the one hand, as an
individual, as the frail phenomenon of will, which the
slightest touch of these forces can utterly destroy, helpless
against powerful nature, dependent, the victim of chance, a
vanishing nothing in the presence of stupendous might; and,
on the other hand, as the eternal, peaceful, knowing sub-
ject, the condition of the object, and, therefore, the sup-
porter of this whole world; the terrific strife of nature only
his idea; the subject itself free and apart from all desire?

172 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

and necessities, in the quiet comprehension of the Ideas. This
is the complete impression of the sublime. Here he obtains a
glimpse of a power beyond all comparison superior to the
individual, threatening it with annihilation.

The impression of the sublime may be produced in quite
another way, by presenting a mere immensity in space and
time; its immeasurable greatness dwindles the individual to
nothing. Adhering to Kant's nomenclature and his accurate
division, we may call the first kind the dynamical, and the
second the mathematical sublime, although we entirely dis-
sent from his explanation of the inner nature of the impres-
sion, and can allow no share in it either to moral reflections,
or to hypostases from scholastic philosophy.

If we lose ourselves in the contemplation of the infinite
greatness of the universe in space and time, meditate on the
thou:>ands of years that are past or to come, or if the heavens
at night actually bring before our eyes innumerable worlds
and so force upon our consciousness the immensity of the
universe, we feel ourselves dwindle to nothing; as indi-
viduals, as living bodies, as transient phenomena of will,
we feel ourselves pass away and vanish into nothing like
drops in the ocean. But at once there rises against this ghost
of our own nothingness, against such lying impossibility, the
immediate consciousness that all these worlds exist only as
our idea, only as modifications of the eternal subject of pure
knowing, which we find ourselves to be as soon as we forget
our individuality, and which is the necessary supporter of all
worlds and all times the condition of their possibility. The
•vastness of the world which disquieted us before, rests now
in us; our dependence upon it is annulled by its dependence
upon us. All this, however, does not come at once into reflec-
tion, but shows itself merely as the felt consciousness that
in some sense or other (which philosophy alone can explain)
We are one with the world, and therefore not oppressed, but
vjxalted by its immensity. It is the felt consciousness of this

THE WORLD AS IDEA 173

that the Upanishads of the Vedas repeatedly express in such
a multitude of different ways; very admirably in the saying
already quoted: Hcb omnes creaturce in totum ego surUy et
frceter me aliud ens non est (Oupnek'hat, vol. i. p. 122.)
It is the transcending of our own individuality, the sense oi
the sublime.

We receive this impression of the mathematical-sublime,
quite directly, by means of a space which is small indeed a3
compared with the world, but which has become directly
perceptible to us, and affects us with its whole extent in all
its three dimensions, so as to make our own body seem almost
infinitely small. An empty space can never be thus per-
ceived, and therefore never an open space, but only space
that is directly perceptible in all its dimensions by means of
the limits which enclose it; thus for example a very high,
vast dome, like that of St. Peter's at Rome, or St. Paul's in
London. The sense of the sublime here arises through the
consciousness of the vanishing nothingness of our own body
in the presence of a vastness which, from another point of
view, itself exists only in our idea, and of which we are, a<
knowing subject, the supporter. Thus here as everywhere it
arises from the contrast between the insignificance and de-
pendence of ourselves as individuals, as phenomena of will,
and the consciousness of ourselves as pure subject of know*
ing. Even the vault of the starry heaven produces this if it
is contemplated without reflection; but just in the same way
as the vault of stone, and only by its apparent, not its real
extent. Some objects of our perception excite in us the feel-
ing of the sublime because, not only on account of their
spatial vastne^is, but also of their great age, that is, their
temporal duration, we feel ourselves dwarfed to insignifi-
cance in their presence, and yet revel in the pleasure of con4
templating them: of this kind are very high mountains, the;
Egyptian pyramids, and colossal ruins of great antiquity.

§ 41. The course of the discussion has made it necessar>

:74 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

to insert at this point the treatment of the sublime, though
we have only half done with the beautiful, as we have con-
sidered its subjective side only. For it was merely a special
modification of this subjective side that distinguished the
beautiful from the sublime. This difference was found to
depend upon whether the state of pure will-less knowing,
which is presupposed and demanded by all assthetic contem-
plation, was reached without opposition, by the mere dis-
appearance of the will from consciousness, because the object
invited and drew us towards it; or whether it was only at-
tained through the free, conscious transcending of the will,
to which the object contemplated had an unfavourable and
even hostile relation, which would destroy contemplation
altogether, if we were to give ourselves up to it. This is the
distinction between the beautiful and the sublime. In the
object they are not essentially different, for in every case
the object of assthetical contemplation is not the individual
thing, but the Idea in it which is striving to reveal itself;
that is to say, adequate objectivity of will at a particular
grade. Its necessary correlative, independent, like itself, of
the principle of sufficient reason, is the pure subject of know->
ing; just as the correlative of the particular thing is the
knowing individual, both of which lie within the province
of the principle of sufficient reason.

When we say that a thing is beautiful, we thereby assert
that it is an object of our aesthetic contemplation, and this
has a double meaning; on the one hand, it means that the
sight of the thing makes us objective, that is to say, that "n
contemplating it we are no longer conscious of ourselves is
individuals, but as pure wiU-less subjects of knowledge;
and, on the other hand, it means that we recognise in the
object, not the particular thing, but an Idea; and this can
only happen, so far as our contemplation of it is not subordi-
nated to the principle of sufficient reason, does not follow
the relation of the object to anything outside it (which is

THE WORLD AS IDEA 175

always ultimately connected with relations to our own will),
but rests in the object itself. For the Idea and the pure
subject of knowledge always appear at once in consciousness
as necessary correlatives, and on their appearance all distinc-
tion of time vanishes, for they are both entirely foreign to
the principle of sufficient reason in all its forms, and He out-
side the relations which are imposed by it; they may be com-
pared to the rainbow and the sun, which have no part in the
constant movement and succession of the failing drops.
Therefore, if, for example, I contemplate a tree aestheti-
cally, i.e.y with artistic eyes, and thus recognise, not it, but its
Idea, it becomes at once of no consequence whether it is this
tree or its predecessor which flourished a thousand years ago,
and whether the observer is this individual or any other that
lived anywhere and at any time; the particular thing and the
knowing individual are abolished with the principle of suffi-
cient reason, and there remains nothing but the Idea and the
pure svibject of knowing, which together constitute the ade-
quate objectivity of will at this grade. And the Idea dispenses
not only with time, but also with space, for the Idea proper
is not this special form which appears before me but its ex-
pression, its pure significance, its inner being, which dis-
closes itself to me and appeals to me, and which may be
quite the same though the spatial relations of its form be
very diiferent.

Since, on the one hand, every given thing may be ob-
served in a purely objective manner and apart from all rela-
tions; and since, on the other hand, the will manifests itself
in everything at some grade of its objectivity, so that every-
thing is the expression of an Idea; it follows that everything
is also beautiful. That even the most insignificant things
admit of pure objective and will-less contemplation, and thus
prove that they are beautiful, is shown by what was said
above in this reference about the Dutch pictures of still life
(§ 38). But pi\e thing is more beautiful than another, be-

176 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

cause it makes this pure objective contemplation easier, it
lends itself to it, and, so to speak, even compels it, and then
we call it very beautiful. This is the case sometimes because,
as an individual thing, it expresses in its purity the Idea of
its species by the very distinct, clearly defined, and significant
relation of its parts, and also fully reveals that Idea through
the completeness of all the possible expressions of its species
united in it, so that it makes the transition from the indi-
vidual thing to the Idea, and therefore also the condition of
pure contemplation, very easy for the beholder. Sometimes
this possession of special beauty in an object lies in the fact
that the Idea itself which appeals to us in it is a high grade
of the objectivity of will, and therefore very significant
and expressive. Therefore it is that man is more beautiful
than all other objects, and the revelation of his nature is the
highest aim of art. Human form, and expression are the most
important objects of plastic art, and human action the most
important object of poetry. Yet each thing has its own
peculiar beauty, not only every organism which expresses it-
self in the unity of an individual being, but also everything
unorganised and formless, and even every manufactured
article. For all these reveal the Ideas through which the will
objectifies itself at its lowest grades; they give, as it were,
the deepest resounding bass notes of nature. Gravity, rigidity,
fluidity, light, and so forth, are the Ideas which express them-
selves in rocks, in buildings, in waters. Landscape gardening
or architecture can do no more than assist them to unfold
their qualities distinctly, fully, and variously; they can only
give them the opportunity of expressing themselves purely,
so that they lend themselves to aesthetic contemplation and
make it easier. Inferior buildings or ill-favoured localities,
on the contrary, which nature has neglected or art has
•spoiled, perform this task in a very slight degree or not at
all; yet even from them these universal, fundamental Ideas
•vf nature cannot altogether disappear. To the careful ob-

THE WORLD AS IDEA 177

server they present themselves here also, and even bad build-
ings and the like are capable of being aesthetically considered;
the Ideas of the most universal properties of their materials
are still recognisable in them, only the artificial form w^hicb
has been given them does not assist but hinders aesthetic con-
templation. Manufactured articles also serve to express Ideas,
only it is not the Idea of the manufactured article which
speaks in them, but the Idea of the material to which this
artificial form has been given. This may be very conveniently
expressed in two words, in the language of the schof Imen,
thus, — the manufactured article expresses the Idea of its
forma substaniialtSy but not that of its forma ac ci dent alts ;
the latter leads to no Idea, but only to a human conceptioi)
of which it is the result. It is needless to say that by manu*
factured article no work of plastic art is meant. The school^
men understand, in fact, by forma substanttalis that which
I call the grade of the objectification of will in a thing. We
shall return immediately, when we treat of architecture, to
the Idea of the material.

§42. I return to the exposition of the aesthetic impression.-
The knowledge of the beautiful always supposes at once and
inseparably the pure knowing subject and the known Idea as>
object. Yet the source of aesthetic satisfaction will sometimes
lie more in the comprehension of the known idea, sometimes
more in the blessedness and spiritual peace of the pure know-
ing subject freed from all willing, and therefore from all
individuality, and the pain that proceeds from it. And, in-
♦ieed, this predominance of one or the other constituent part
of aesthetic feeling will depend upon whether the intuitively
grasped Idea is a higher or a lower grade of the objectivity
of will. Thus in aesthetic contemplation (in the real, or
through the medium of art) of the beauty of nature in the
inorganic and vegetable worlds, or in works of architecture,
the pleasure of pure will-less knowing will predommate,
because the Ideas which are here apprehended are only low

lyS THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER •

grades of the objectivity of will, and are therefore not
manifestations of deep significance and rich content. On the
ether hand, if animals and man are the objects of aesthetic
contemplation or representation, the pleasure will consist
rather in the comprehension of these Ideas, which are the
most distinct revelation of will; for they exhibit the greatest
multiplicity of forms, the greatest richness and deep sig-
nificance of phenomena, and reveal to us most completely
the nature of will, whether in its violence, its terribleness,
its satisfaction or its aberration (the latter in tragic situa-
tions), or finally in its change and self-surrender, which is
the peculiar theme of Christian painting; as the Idea of the
will enlightened by full knowledge is the object of historical
painting in general, and of the drama. We shall now go
through the fine arts one by one, and this will give com-
pleteness and distinctness to the theory of the beautiful
which we have advanced.

If now we consider architecture simply as a fine art and
apart from its application to useful ends, in which it serves
the will and not pure knowledge, and therefore ceases to be
art in our sense; we can assign to it no other aim than that
of bringing to greater distinctness some of those ideas which
are the lowest grades of the objectivity of will; such as
gravity, cohesion, rigidity, hardness, those universal qualities
of stone, those first, simplest, most inarticulate manifesta-
tions of will; the bass notes of nature; and after these light,
which in many respects is their opposite. Even at these low
grades of the objectivity of will we see its nature revealing
itself in discord; for properly speaking the conflict between
gravity and rigidity is the sole aesthetic material of archi-
tecture; its problem is to make this conflict appear with per-
fect distinctness in a multitude of different ways. It solves
it by depriving these indestructible forces of the shortest
way to their satisfaction, and conducting them to it by a cir-
cuitous route, so that the conflict is lengthened and the inex*

THE WORLD AS IDEA 179

haustible efforts of both forces become visible in many-
different ways. The whole mass of the building, if left to its
original tendency, would exhibit a mere heap or clump,
bound as closely as possible to the earth, to which gravity,
the form in which the will appears here, continually presses,
while rigidity, also objectivity of will, resists. But this very
tendency, this effort, is hindered by architecture from ob-
taining direct satisfaction, and only allowed to reach it in-
directly and by roundabout ways. The roof, for example,
can only press the earth through columns, the arch must sup-
port itself, and can only satisfy its tendency towards the
earth through the medium of the pillars, and so forth. But
just by these enforced digressions, just by these restrictions,
the forces which reside in the crude mass of stone unfold
themselves in the most distinct and multifarious ways; and
the purely assthetic aim of architecture can go no further
than this. Therefore the beauty, at any rate, of a building
lies in the obvious adaptation of every part, not to the out-
ward arbitrary end of man (so far the work belongs to
practical architecture), but directly to the stability of the
whole, to which the position, dimensions, and form of every
part must have so necessary a relation that, where it is pos-
sible, if any one part were taken away, the whole would
fall to pieces. For just because each part bears just as much
as it conveniently can, and each is supported just where it
requires to be and just to the necessary extent, this opposition
unfolds itself, this conflict between rigidity and gravity,
which constitutes the life, the manifestation of will, in the
stone, becomes completely visible, and these lowest grades of
the objectivity of will reveal themselves distinctly. In the
same way the form of each part must not be determined ar-
bitrarily, but by its end, and its relation to the whole.

Now, because the Ideas which architecture brings to clear
perception, are the lowest grades of the objectivity of will,
and consequently their objective significance, which archi-

l8o THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

lecture reveals to us, is comparatively small; the aesthetic
pleasure of looking at a beautiful building in a good light
will lie, not so much in the comprehension of the Idea, as in
the subjective correlative which accompanies this compre-
hension; it will consist pre-eminently in the fact that the
beholder, set free from the kind of knowledge that belongs
to the individual, and which serves the will and follows the
principle of sufficient reason, is raised to that of the pure
subject of knowing free from will. It will consist then
principally in pure contemplation itself, free from all the
suffering of will and of individuality. In this respect the
opposite of architecture, and the other extreme of the series
of the fine arts, is the drama, which brings to knowledge the
most significant Ideas. Therefore in the aesthetic pleasure
afforded by the drama the objective side is throughout pre-
dominant.

Architecture has this distinction from plastic art and
poetry: it does not give us a copy but the thing itself. It does
not repeat, as they do, the known Idea, so that the artist lends
his eyes to the beholder, but in it the artist merely presents
the object to the beholder, and facilitates for him the com-
prehension of the Idea by bringing the actual, individual
object to a distinct and complete expression of its nature.

Unlike the works of the other arts, those of architecture
are very seldom executed for purely aesthetic ends. These
are generally subordinated to other useful ends which are
foreign to art itself. Thus the great merit of the architect
consists in achieving and attaining the pure aesthetic ends, in
spite of their subordination to other ends which are foreign
to them. This he does by cleverly adapting them in a variety
of ways to the arbitrary ends in view, and by rightly judging
which form of assthetical architectonic beauty is compatible
and may be associated with a temple, which with a palace,
which with a prison, and so forth. The more a harsh climate

THE WORLD AS IDEA i8i

increases these demands of necessity and utility, determines
them definitely, and prescribes them more inevitably, the
less free play has beauty in architecture. In the mild climate
of India, Egypt, Greece, and Rome, where the demands of
necessity were fewer and less definite, architecture could
follow its aesthetic ends with the greatest freedom. But un-
der a northern sky this was sorely hindered. Here, wher.
caissons, pointed roofs and towers were what was demanded,
architecture could only unfold its own beauty within very
narrow limits, and therefore it was obliged to make amends
by resorting all the more to the borrowed ornaments of sculp-
ture, as is seen in Gothic architecture.

§ 45. The great problem of historical painting and sculp-
ture is to express directly and for perception the Idea in
which the will reaches the highest grade of its objectifica-
tion. The objective side of the pleasure afforded by the
beautiful is here always predominant, and the subjective
side has retired into the background. It is further to be ob-
served that at the next grade below this, animal painting,
the characteristic is entirely one with the beautiful; the most
characteristic lion, wolf, horse, sheep, or ox, was always the
most beautiful also. The reason of this is that animals have
only the character of their species, no individual character,
In the representation of men the character of the species is
separated from that of the individual; the former is now
called beauty (entirely in the objective sense), but the latter
retains the name, character, or expression, and the new diffi-
culty arises of representing both, at once and completely, in
the same individual.

Human beauty is an objective expression, which means
the fullest objectification of will at the highest grade at
which it is knowable, the Idea of man in general, completely
expressed in the sensible form. But however much the
objective side of the beautiful appears here, the subjective
side still always accompanies it. And just because no object

1 82 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

transports us so quickly into pure aesthetic contemplation,
as the most beautiful human countenance and form, at the
sight of which we are instantly filled with unspeakable satis*
faction, and raised above ourselves and all that troubles us;
this is only possible because this most distinct and purest
knowledge of will raises us most easily and quickly to the
state of pure knowing, in which our personality, our will
with its constant pain, disappears, so long as the pure aesthetic
pleasure lasts. Therefore it is that Goethe says: "No evil can
touch him who looks on human beauty; he feels himself at
one with himself and with the world." That a beautiful
human form is produced by nature must be explained in this
way. At this its highest grade the will objectifies itself in an
individual; and therefore through circumstances and its own
power it completely overcomes all the hindrances and oppo-
sition which the phenomena of the lower grades present to
it. Such are the forces of nature, from which the will must
always first extort and win back the matter that belongs to
all its manifestations. Further, the phenomenon of will at
its higher grades always has multiplicity in its form. Even
the tree is only a systematic aggregate of innumerably re-
peated sprouting fibres. This combination assumes greater
complexity in higher forms and the human body is an ex-
ceedingly complex system of different parts, each of which
has a peculiar life of its own, vita frofria, subordinate to the
whole. Now that all these parts are in the proper fashion
subordinate to the whole, and co-ordinate to each other, that
they all work together harmoniously for the expression of
the whole, nothing superfluous, nothing restricted; all these
are the rare conditions, whose result is beauty, the completely
expressed character of the species. So is it in nature. But how
in art.f* One would suppose that art achieved the beautiful
by imitating nature. But how is the artist to recognise the
perfect work which is to be imitated, and distinguish it from
the failures, if he does not anticipate the beautiful before

THE WORLD AS IDEA 183

exferience? And besides this, has nature ever produced a
human being perfectly beautiful in all his parts? It has ac-
cordingly been thought that the artist must seek out the beau-
tiful parts, distributed among a number of different human
beings, and out of them construct a beautiful whole; a per-
verse and foolish opinion. For it will be asked, how is he to
know that just these forms and not others are beautiful? We
also see what kind of success attended the efforts of the old
German painters to achieve the beautiful by imitating nature.
Observe their naked figures. No knowledge of the beautiful
is possible purely a fosteriori, and from mere experience;
it is always, at least in part, a friori, although quite different
in kind, from the forms of the principle of sufficient reason,
of which we are conscious a friori. These concern the uni-
versal form of phenomena as such, as it constitutes the possi-
bility of knowledge in general, the universal how of all
phenomena, and from this knowledge proceed mathematics
and pure natural science. But this other kind of knowledge
a frtorty which makes it possible to express the beautiful,
concerns, not the form but the content of phenomena, not
the how but the what of the phenomenon. That we all rec-
ognise human beauty when we see it, but that in the true
artist this takes place with such clearness that he shows it as
he has never seen it, and surpasses nature in his representa-
tion; this is only possible because we ourselves are the will
whose adequate objectification at its highest grade is here to
be judged and discovered. Thus alone have we in fact an
anticipation of that which nature (which is just the will that
constitutes our own being) strives to express. And in the
true genius this anticipation is accompanied by so great a
degree of intelligence that he recognises the Idea in the par-
ticular thing, and thus, as it were, understands the half-
uttered sfeech of naturcy and articulates clearly what she
only stammered forth. He expresses in the hard marble that
beauty of form which in a thousand attempts she failed to

1 84 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

produce, he presents it to Nature, saying, as it were, to her,
**That is what you wanted to say!" And whoever is able to
judge replies, "Yes, that is it." Only in this way was it pos-
sible for the genius of the Greeks to find the type of human
beauty and establish it as a canon for the school of sculp-
ture; and only by virtue of such an anticipation is it possible
for all of us to recognise beauty, when it has actually been
achieved by nature in the particular case. This anticipation
is the Ideal. It is the Idea so far as it is known a friori, at
least half, and it becomes practical for art, because it corre-
sponds to and completes what is given a fostertori through
nature. The possibility of such an anticipation of the beau-
tiful a friori in the artist, and of its recognition a posteriori
by the critic, lies in the fact that the artist and the critic are
themselves the "in-itself" of nature, the will which objecti-
fies itself. For, as Empedocles said, like can only be known
by like: only nature can understand itself: only nature can
fathom itself: but only spirit also can understand spirit.^

Human beauty was explained above as the fullest objecti-
fication cf will at the highest grade at which it is knowable.
It expresses itself through the form; and this lies in space
jilone, and has no necessary connection with time, as, for
example, motion has. Thus far then we may say: the ade-
quate objectification of will through a merely spatial phe-
nomenon is beauty, in the objective sense. A plant is nothing
but such a merely spatial phenomenon of will; for no mo-
tion, and consequently no relation to time (regarded apart
from its development), belongs to the expression of its na-
ture; its mere form expresses its whole being and displays it

1 The last sentence is the German of the il n'y a que Vesprit qui
tente Vesprit, of Helvetius. In the first edition there was no occa-
sion to point this out, but since then the age has become so de-
graded and ignorant through the stupefying influence of the Hegelian
sophistry, that some might quite likelj? say that an antithesis was
intended here between "spirit and nature." I am therefore obliged
to guard myself in express terms against the suspicion of such
vulgar soohisms.

THE WORLD AS IDEA 185

openly. But brutes and men require, further, for the full
revelation of the will which is manifested in them, a series
of actions, and thus the manifestation in them takes on a
direct relation to time. All this has already been explained
in the preceding book; it is related to what we are consider*
ing at present in the following way. As the merely spatiaf
manifestation of will can objectify it fully or defectively al
each definite grade, — and it is this which constitutes beauty
or ugliness, — so the temporal objectiiication of will, i.e.^
the action, and indeed the direct action, the movement, may
correspond to the will, which objectifies itself in it, purely
and fully without foreign admixture, without superfluity,
without defect, only expressing exactly the act of will de-
termined in each case; — or the converse of all this may oc-
cur. In the first case the movement is made with grace, in
the second case without it. Thus as beauty is the adequate
representation of will generally, through its merely spatial
manifestation; grace is the adequate representation of will
through its temporal manifestation, that is to say, the per-
fectly accurate and fitting expression of each act of will,
through the movement and position which objectify it.
Since movement and position presuppose the body, Winckel-
mann's expression is very true and suitable, when he says,
"Grace is the proper relation of the acting person to the ac-
tion" (Works, vol. i. p. 258). It is thus evident that beauty
may be attributed to a plant, but no grace, unless in a figura-
tive sense; but to brutes and men, both beauty and grace.
Grace consists, according to what has been said, in every
movement being performed, and every position assumed, in
the easiest, most appropriate and convenient way, and there-
fore being the pure, adequate expression of its intention, or
of the act of will, without any superfluity, which exhibits
itself as aimless, meaningless bustle, or as wooden stiffness.
Grace presupposes as its condition a true proportion of all
the limbs, and a symmetrical, harmonious figure; for com-

1 86 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER '

plete ease and evident appropriateness of all positions and
movements are only possible by means of these. Grace is
therefore never without a certain degree of beauty of per-
son. The two, complete and united, are the most distinct
manifestation of will at the highest grade of its objectifica-
tion.

§ 51. If now, with the exposition which has been given
of art in general, we turn from plastic and pictorial art to
poetry, we shall have no doubt that its aim also is the revela-
tion of the Ideas, the grades of the objectification of will,
and the communication of them to the hearer with the
distinctness and vividness with which the poetical sense
comprehends them. Ideas are essentially perceptible; if,
therefore, in poetry only abstract conceptions are directly
communicated through words, it is yet clearly the intention
to make the hearer perceive the Ideas of life in the repre-
sentatives of these conceptions, and this can only take place
through the assistance of his own imagination. But in order
to set the imagination to work for the accomplishment of
this end, the abstract conceptions, which are the immediate
material of poetry as of dry prose, must be so arranged that
their spheres intersect each other in such a way that none of
them can remain in its abstract universality; but, instead of
it, a perceptible representative appears to the imagination;
and this is always further modified by the words of the poet
according to what his intention may be. As the chemist ob-
tains solid precipitates by combining perfectly clear and
transparent fluids; the poet understands how to precipitate,
as it were, the concrete, the individual, the perceptible idea,
out of the abstract and transparent universality of the con-
cepts by the manner in which he combines them. For the
Idea can only be known by perception; and knowledge of
the Idea is the end of art. The skill of a master, in poetry as
in chemistry, enables us always to obtain the precise precipi-
tate we intended. This end is assisted by the numerous epi-

THE WORLD AS IDEA 187'

thets in poetry, by means of which the universality of every
concept is narrowed more and more till we reach the per-
ceptible. Homer attaches to almost every substantive an ad-
jective, whose concept intersects and considerably diminishes
the sphere of the concept of the substantive, which is thm
brought so much the nearer to perception : for example —

"Where gentle winds from the blue heavens sigh,
There stand the myrtles still, the laurel high," —

calls up before the imagination by means of a few concepts
the whole delight of a southern clime.

Rhythm and rhyme are quite peculiar aids to poetry. I
can give no other explanation of their incredibly powerful
effect than that our faculties of perception have received
from time, to which they are essentially bound, some quality
on account of which we inwardly follow, and, as it were,
consent to each regularly recurring sound. In this way
rhythm and rhyme are partly a means of holding our atten-
tion, because we willingly follow the poem read, and partly
they produce in us a blind consent to what is read prior to
any judgment, and this gives the poem a certain emphatic^
power of convincing independent of all reasons.

From the general nature of the material, that is, the con-
cepts, which poetry uses to communicate the Ideas, the ex-
tent of its province is very great. The whole of nature, the
Ideas of all grades, can be represented by means of it, for
it proceeds according to the Idea it has to impart, so that
Its representations are sometimes descriptive, sometimes nar-
rative, and sometimes directly dramatic. If, in the represen-
tation of the lower grades of the objectivity of will, plastic
and pictorial art generally surpass it, because lifeless nature
and even brute nature, reveals almost its whole being in a
single well-chosen moment; man, on the contrary, so far ai
he does not express himself by the mere form and expression
of his person; but through a series of actions and the accom-

i88 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

panying thoughts and emotions, is the principal object of
poetry, in which no other art can compete with it, for here
the progress or movement which cannot be represented in
plastic or pictorial art just suits its purpose.

The revelation of the Idea, which is the highest grade of
the objectivity of will, the representation of man in the
i:onnected series of his efforts and actions, is thus the great
problem of poetry. It is true that both experience and histor)'
teach us to know man; yet oftener men than man, i.e., they
^rive us empirical notes of the behaviour of men to each
other, from which we may frame rules for our own con-
duct, oftener than they afford us deep glimpses of the inner
nature of man. The latter function, however, is by no
rfneans entirely denied them; but as often as it is the nature
)f mankind itself that discloses itself to us in history or in
our own experience, we have comprehended our experience,
and the historian has comprehended history, with artistic
eyes, poetically, i.e., according to the Idea, not the phenom-
enon, in its inner nature, not in its relations. Our own
experience is the indispensable condition of understanding
poetry as of understanding history; for it is, so to speak, the
dictionary of the language that both speak. But history is
related to poetry as portrait-painting is related to historical
painting; the one gives us the true in the individual, the
other the true in the universal; the one has the truth of the
phenomenon, and can therefore verify it from the phenom-
enal, the other has the truth of the Idea, which can be
found in no particular phenomenon, but yet speaks to us
from them all. The poet from deliberate choice represents
significant characters in significant situations; the historian
takes both as they come. Indeed, he must regard and select
the circumstances and the persons, not with reference to
their inward and true significance, which expresses the Idea,
but according to the outward, apparent, and relatively im-
portant significance with regard to the connection and the

THE WORLD AS IDEA i8^

consequences. He must consider nothing in and for itself in
its essential character and expression, but must look at every-
thing in its relations, in its connection, in its influence upon
what follows, and especially upon its own age. Therefore
he will not overlook an action of a king, though of little
significance, and in itself quite common, because it has re-
sults and influence. And, on the other hand, actions of the
highest significance of particular and very eminent indi-
viduals are not to be recorded by him if they have no conse-
quences. For his treatment follows the principle of sufficient
reason, and apprehends the phenomenon, of which this prin-
ciple is the form. But the poet comprehends the Idea, the
inner nature of man apart from all relations, outside all
time, the adequate objectivity of the thing-in-itself, at its
highest grade. Even in that method of treatment which is
necessary for the historian, the inner nature and significance
of the phenomena, the kernel of all these shells, can never
be entirely lost. He who seeks for it, at any rate, may find
it and recognise it. Yet that which is significant in itself,
not in its relations, the real unfolding of the Idea, will be
found far more accurately and distinctly in poetry than in
history, and, therefore, however paradoxical it may sound,
far more really genuine inner truth is to be attributed to
poetry than to history. For the historian must accurately fol-
low the particular event according to life, as it develops it-
self in time in the manifold tangled chains of causes and
effects. It is, however, impossible that he can have all the
data for this; he cannot have seen all and discovered all.
He is forsaken at every moment by the original of his pic-
ture, or a false one substitutes itself for it, and this so con-
stantly that I think I may assume that in all history the
false outweighs the true. The poet, on the contrary, has
comprehended the Idea of man from some definite side
which is to be represented; thus it is the nature of his own
self that objectifies itself in it for him. His knowledge, as

190 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

we explained above when speaking of sculpture, is half
a frioz-i; his ideal stands before his mind firm, distinct,
brightly illuminated, and cannot forsake him; therefore he
shows us, in the mirror of his mind, the Idea pure and dis-
tinct, and his delineation of it down to the minutest par-
ticular is true as life itself. The great ancient historians are,
therefore, in those particulars in which their data fail them,
for example, in the speeches of their heroes — poets; indeed
their whole manner of handling their material approaches
to the epic. But this gives their representations unity, and
enables them to retain inner truth, even when outward
truth was not accessible, or indeed was falsified. And as we
compared history to portrait-painting, in contradistinction to
poetry, which corresponds to historical painting, we find
that Winckelmann's maxim, that the portrait ought to be
the ideal of the individual, was followed by the ancient
historians, for they represent the individual in such a way
as to bring out that side of the Idea of man which is ex-
pressed in it. Modern historians, on the contrary, with few
exceptions, give us in general only "a dust-bin and a lumber-
room, and at the most a chronicle of the principal political
events." Therefore, whoever desires to know man in his
inner nature, identical in all its phenomena and develop-
ments, to know him according to the Idea, will find that the
works of the great, immortal poet present a far truer, more
distinct picture, than the historians can ever gi\'e. For even
the best of the historians are, as poets, far from the first;
and moreover their hands are tied. In this aspect the relation
between the historian and the poet may be illustrated by
the following comparison. The mere, pure historian, who
works only according to data, is like a man, who without
any knowledge of mathematics, has investigated the rela-
tions of certain figures, which he has accidentally found, by
measuring them; and the problem thus empirically solved
is afiFected of course by all the errors of the drawn figure.

THE WORLD AS IDEA 191

The poet, on the other hand, is like the mathematician, who
constructs these relations a priori in pure perception, and ex-
presses them not as they actually are in the drawn figure, but
as they are in the Idea, which the drawing is intended to
render for the senses. Therefore Schiller says: —

"What has never anywhere come to pass,
That alone never grows old."

Indeed I must attribute greater value to biographies, and
especially to autobiographies, in relation to the knowledge
of the nature of man, than to history proper, at least as it is
commonly handled. Partly because in the former the data
can be collected more accurately and completely than in the
latter; partly, because in history proper, it is not so much
men as nations and heroes that act, and the individuals who
do appear, seem so far oif, surrounded with such pomp and
circumstance, clothed in the stiff robes of state, or heavy, iw-
flexible armour, that it is really hard through all this to
recognise the human movements. On the other hand, the
life of the individual when described with truth, in a nar-
row sphere, shows the conduct of men in all its forms and
subtleties, the excellence, the virtue, and even holiness of a
few, the perversity, meanness, and knavery of most, the
dissolute profligacy of some. Besides, in the only aspect we
are considering here, that of the inner significance of the
phenomenal, it is quite the same whether the objects with
which the action is concerned, are, relatively considered,
trifling or important, farm-houses or kingdoms: for all
these things in themselves are without significance, and obtain
it only '\n so far as the will is moved by them. The motive has
significance only through its relation to the will, while the
relation which it has as a thing to other things like itself,
does not concern us here. As a circle of one inch in diamc'
ter, and a circle of forty million miles in diameter, have
precisely the same geometrical properties, so are the events

192 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

and the history of a village and a kingdom essentially the
same; and we may study and learn to know mankind as
A^ell in the one as in the other. It is also a mistake to sup-
pose ihat autobiographies are full of deceit and dissimula-
tion. On the contrary, lymg (though always possible) is
perhaps more difficult there than elsewhere. Dissimulation
is easiest in mere conversation; indeed, though it may sound
paradoxical, it is really more difficult even in a letter. For
in the case of a letter the writer is alone, and looks into him-
self, and not out on the world, so that what is strange and
distant does not easily approach him; and he has not the test
of the impression made upon another before his eyes. But
the receiver of the letter peruses it quietly in a mood un-
known to the writer, reads it repeatedly and at different
times, and thus easily finds out the concealed intention. We
also get to know an author as a man most easily from his
books, because all these circumstances act here still more
strongly and permanently. And in an autobiography it is so
difficult to dissimulate, that perhaps there does not exist a
single one that is not, as a whole, more true than any his-
tory that ever was written. The man who writes his own
life surveys it as a whole, the particular becomes small, the
near becomes distant, the distant becomes near again, the
motives that influenced him shrink; he seats himself at
the confessional, and has done so of his own free will; the
spirit of lying does not so easily take hold of him here, for
there is also in every man an inclination to truth which
has first to be overcome whenever he lies, and which here
has taken up a specially strong position. The relation be-
tween biography and the history of nations may be made
clear for perception by means of the following comparison:
History shows us mankind as a view from a high mountain
shows us nature; we see much at a time, wide stretches,
great masses, but nothing is distinct nor recognisable in all
the details of its own peculiar nature. On the other hand,

THE WORLD AS IDEA 193

the representation of the life of the individual shows us the
man, as we see nature if we go about among her trees,
plants, rocks, and waters. But in landscape-painting, in
which the artist lets us look at nature with his eyes, tht
knowledge of the Ideas, and the condition of pure will-les£v
knowing, which is demanded by these, is made much easier
for us; and, in the same way, poetry is far superior both to
history and biography, in the representation of the Ideas
which may be looked for in all three. For here also genius
holds up to us the magic glass, in which all that is essential
and significant appears before us collected and placed in the
clearest light, and what is accidental and foreign is left out.^
The representation of the Idea of man, which is the
work of the poet, may be performed, so that what is repre-
sented is also the representer. This is the case in lyrical
poetry, in songs, properly so called, in which the poet only
perceives vividly his own state and describes it. Thus a cer-
tain subjectivity is essential to this kind of poetry from the
nature of its object. Again, what is to be represented may be
entirely different from him who represents it, as is the case
in all other kinds of poetry, in which the poet more or less
conceals himself behind his representation, and at last dis-
appears altogether. In the ballad the poet still expresses to
some extent his own state through the tone and proportion
of the whole; therefore, though much more objective than
the lyric, it has yet something subjective. This becomes less
in the idyll, still less in the romantic poem, almost entirely
disappears in the true epic, and even to the last vestige in
the drama, which is the most objective and, in more than
one respect, the completest and most difficult form of poetry.
The lyrical form of poetry is consequently the easiest, and
although art, as a whole, belongs only to the true man of
genius, who so rarely appears, even a man who is not in
general very remarkable may produce a beautiful song if,

* Cf. Ch. xxxviii. of Supplement.

\94 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

by actual strong excitement from without, some inspiration
raises his mental powers; for all that is required for this is
a lively perception of his own state at a moment of emo-
tional excitement. This is proved by the existence of many
single songs by individuals who have otherwise remained
"unknown; especially the German national songs, of which
we have an exquisite collection in the "Wunderhorn"; and
also by innumerable lovesongs and other songs of the people
in all languages; — for to seize the mood of a moment and
embody it in a song is the whole achievement of this kind
of poetry. Yet in the lyrics of true poets the inner nature of
all mankind is reflected, and all that millions of past, pres-
ent, and future men have found, or will find, in the same
situations, which are constantly recurring, finds its exact
expression in them. And because these situations, by con-
stant recurrence, are permanent as man himself and always
^all up the same sensations, the lyrical productions of genu-
ine poets remain through thousands of years true, powerful,
and fresh. But if the poet is always the universal man, then
all that has ever moved a human heart, all that human na-
ture in any situation has ever produced from itself, all that
dwells and broods in any human breast — is his theme and
his material, and also all the rest of nature. Therefore the
poet may just as well sing of voluptuousness as of mysticism,
be Anacreon or Angelus Silesius, write tragedies or come-
dies, represent the sublime or the common mind — according
to humour or vocation. And no one has the right to pre-
scribe to the poet what he ought to be — noble and sublime,
moral, pious. Christian, one thing or another, still less to
reproach him because he is one thing and not another. He is
the mirror of mankind, and brings to its consciousness what
it feels and does.

In the more objective kinds of poetry, especially in the
romance, the epic, and the drama, the end, the revelation of
Vhe Idea of man, is principally attained by two means, by

THE WORLD AS IDEA 195

true and profound representation of significant characters,
and by the invention of pregnant situations in which they
disclose themselves. For as it is incumbent upon the chemist
not only to exhibit the simple elements, pure and genuine,
and their principal compounds, but also to expose them to
the influence of such reagents as will clearly and strikingly
bring out their peculiar qualities, so is it incumbent on the
poet not only to present to us significant characters truly and
faithfully as nature itself; but, in order that we may get to
know them, he must place them in those situations in which
their peculiar qualities will fully unfold themselves, and
appear distinctly in sharp outline; situations which are
therefore called significant. In real life, and in history,
situations of this kind are rarely brought about by chance,
and they stand alone, lost and concealed in the multitude of
those which are insignificant. The complete significance of
the situations ought to distinguish the romance, the epic, and
the drama from real life as completely as the arrangement
and selection of significant characters. In both, however,
absolute truth is a necessary condition of their effect, and
want of unity in the characters, contradiction either of
themselves or of the nature of humanity in general, as well
as impossibility, or very great improbability in the events,
even in mere accessories, offend just as much in poetry as
badly drawn figures, false perspective, or wrong lighting in
painting. For both in poetr}"" and painting we demand the
faithful mirror of life, of man, of the world, only made
more clear by the representation, and more significant by the
arrangement. For there is only one end of all the arts, the
representation of the Ideas; and their essential difference
lies simply in the different grades of the objectification of
will to which the Ideas that are to be represented belong.
This also determines the material of the representatioa
Thus the arts which are most widely separated may yet
throw light on each other. For example, in order to com^/

196 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

prehend fully the Ideas of water it is not sufficient to see it
in the quiet pond or in the evenly-flowing stream; but these
Ideas disclose themselves fully only when the water appears
under all circumstances and exposed to all kinds of ob-
stacles. The effects of the varied circumstances and obstacles
give it the opportunity of fully exhibiting all its qualities.
This is why we find it beautiful when it tumbles, rushes,
and foams, or leaps into the air, or falls in a cataract or
spray; or, lastly, if artificially confined it springs up in a
fountain. Thus showing itself different under different cir-
cumstances, it yet always faithfully asserts its character; it
is just as natural to it to spout up as to lie in glassy stillness;
it is as ready for the one as for the other as soon as the cir-
cumstances appear. Now, what the engineer achieves with
the fluid matter of water, the architect achieves with the
rigid matter of stone, and just this the epic or dramatic poet
achieves with the Idea of man. Unfolding and rendering
distinct the Idea expressing itself in the object of every art,
the Idea of the will which objectifies itself at each grade,
is the common end of all the arts. The life of man, as it
shows itself for the most part in the real world, is like the
water, as it is generally seen in the pond and the river; but
in the epic, the romance, the tragedy, selected characters are
placed in those circumstances in which all their special quali-
ties unfold themselves, the depths of the human heart are
revealed, and become visible in extraordinary and very sig-
nificant actions. Thus poetry objectifies the Idea of man, an
Idea which has the peculiarity of expressing itself in highly
individual characters.

Tragedy is to be regarded, and is recognised as the sum-
mit of poetical art, both on account of the greatness of its
effect and the difficulty of its achievement. It is very signifi-
cant for our whole system, and well worthy of observation,
that the end of this highest poetical achievement is the rep-
resentation of the terrible side of life. The unspeakable

THE WORLD AS IDEA 197

pain, the wail of humanity, the triumph of evil, the scorn-
ful mastery of chance, and the irretrievable fall of the just
and innocent, is here presented to us; and in this lies a sig-
nificant hint of the nature of the world and of existence.
It is the strife of will with itself, which here, completely
unfolded at the highest grade of its objectivity, comes into
fearful prominence. It becomes visible in the suffering of
men, which is now introduced, partly through chance and
error, which appear as the rulers of the world, personified
as fate, on account of their insidiousness, which even reaches
the appearance of design; partly it proceeds from man him-
self, through the self -mortifying efforts of a few, through
the wickedness and perversity of most. It is one and the
same will that lives and appears in them all, but whose
phenomena fight against each other and destroy each other,
In one individual it appears powerfully, in another niore
weakly; in one more subject to reason, and softened by the
light of knowledge, in another less so, till at last, in some
single case, this knowledge, purified and heightened by suf-
fering itself, reaches the point at which the phenomenon,
the veil of Maya, no longer deceives it. It sees through the
form of the phenomenon, the frinclfiutn indlv'iduationis.
The egoism which rests on this perishes with it, so that now
the motives that were so powerful before have lost their
might, and instead of them the complete knowledge of the
nature of the world, which has a quieting effect on the will,
produces resignation, the surrender not merely of life, but
of the very will to live. Thus we see in tragedies the noblest
men, after long conflict and suffering, at last renounce the
ends they have so keenly followed, and all the pleasures of
life for ever, or else freely and joyfully surrender life it-
self. So is it with the steadfast prince of Calderon; with
Gretchen in "Faust"; with Hamlet, whom his friend
Horatio would willingly follow, but is bade remain a while,
and in this harsh world draw his breath in pain, to tell the

198 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

story of Hamlet, and clear his memory; so also is it with the
Maid of Orleans, the Bride of Messina; they all die puri-
fied by suffering, i.e.y after the will to live which was for-
merly in them is dead. In the "Mohammed" of Voltaire
this is actually expressed in the concluding words which the
dying Palmira addresses to Mohammed: "The world is for
tyrants: live!" On the other hand, the demand for so-
called poetical justice rests on entire misconception of the
nature of tragedy, and, indeed, of the nature of the world
itself. It boldly appears in all its dulness in the criticisms
which Dr. Samuel Johnson made on particular plays of
Shakespeare, for he very naively laments its entire absence.
And its absence is certainly obvious, for in what has Ophelia,
Desdemona, or Cordelia offended? But only the dull, op-
timistic, Protestant-rationalistic, or peculiarly Jewish view
of life will make the demand for poetical justice, and find
satisfaction in it. The true sense of tragedy is the deeper in-
sight, that it is not his own individual sins that the hero
atones for, but original sin, i.e., the crime of existence itself:

"Pues el delito mayor
Del hombre es haber nacido";

("For the greatest crime of man
Is that he was born";)

as Calderon exactly expresses it.

§ 52. Now that we have considered all the fine arts m
the general way that is suitable to our point of view, begin-
ning with architecture, the peculiar end of which is to eluci-
date the objectification of will at the lowest grades of its
visibility, in which it shows itself as the dumb unconscious
tendency of the mass in accordance with laws, and yet al-
ready reveals a breach of the unity of will with itself in a
conflict between gravity and rigidity — and ending with the
consideration of tragedy, which presents to us at the highest
grades of the objectification of will this very conflict with

THE WORLD AS IDEA 199

itself in terrible magnitude and distinctness j we find that
there is still another fine art which has been excluded from
our consideration, and had to be excluded, for in the sys-
tematic connection of our exposition there was no fitting
place for it — I mean music. It stands alone, quite cut off
from all the other arts. In it we do not recognise the copy or
repetition of any Idea of existence in the world. Yet it is
such a great and exceedingly noble art, its effect on the in-
most nature of man is so powerful, and it is so entirely and
deeply understood by him in his inmost consciousness as a
perfectly universal language, the distinctness of which sur-
passes even that of the perceptible world itself, that we
certainly have more to look for in it than an exercltium
arithmeticce occultum nesc'ientis se numerare animi^ which
Leibnitz called it. Yet he was perfectly right, as he con-
sidered only its immediate external significance, its form.
But if it were nothing more, the satisfaction which it af-
fords would be like that which we feel when a sum in
arithmetic comes out right, and could not be that intense
pleasure with which we see the deepest recesses of our
nature find utterance. From our standpoint, therefore, at
which the aesthetic effect is the criterion, we must attribute
to music a far more serious and deep significance, connected
with the inmost nature of the world and our own self, and
in reference to which the arithmetical proportions, to which
it may be reduced, are related, not as the thing signified, but
merely as the sign. That in some sense music must be related
to the world as the representation to the thing represented,
as the copy to the original, we may conclude from the
analogy of the other arts, all of which possess this character,
and affect us on the whole in the same way as it does, only
that the effect of music is stronger, quicker, more necessary
and infallible. Further, its representative relation to the
world must be very deep, absolutely true, and strikingly
^ Leibnitii epistolae, collectio Kortholti, ep. 154.

200 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

accurate, because it is instantly understood by every one,
and has the appearance of a certain infallibility, because its
form may be reduced to perfectly definite rules expressed
in numbers, from which it cannot free itself without en-
tirely ceasing to be music. Yet the point of comparison be-
tween music and the world, the respect in which it stands to
the world in the relation of a copy or repetition, is very ob-
scure. Men have practised music in all ages without being
able to account for this; content to understand it directly,
they renounce all claim to an abstract conception of this
direct understanding itself.

I gave my mind entirely up to the impression of music
in all its forms, and then returned to reflection and the
system of thought expressed in the present work, and thus I
arrived at an explanation of the inner nature of music and
of tt\e nature of its imitative relation to the world — which
from analogy had necessarily to be presupposed — an ex-
planation which is quite sufficient for myself, and satisfac-
tory to my investigation, and which will doubtless be equally
evident to any one who has followed me thus far and has
agreed with my view of the world. Yet I recognise the fact
that it is essentially impossible to prove this explanation, for
it assumes and establishes a relation of music, as idea, to
that which from its nature can never be idea, and music will
have to be regarded as the copy of an original which can
never itself be directly presented as idea. I can therefore
do no more than state here, at the conclusion of this third
book, which has been principally devoted to the considera-
tion of the arts, the explanation of the marvellous art of
music which satisiies myself, and I must leave the accept-
ance or denial of my view to the effect produced upon each
t)f my readers both by music itself and by the whole system
of thought communicated in this work. Moreover, I regard
it as necessary, in order to be able to assent with full con-
viction to the exposition of the significance of music I am

THE WORLD AS IDEA 201

about to give, that one should often listen to music with
constant reflection upon my theory concerning it, and for
this again it is necessary to be very familiar with the whole
of my system of thought.

The (Platonic) Ideas are the adequate objectification of
will. To excite or suggest the knowledge of these by means
of the representation of particular things (for works of art
themselves are always representations of particular things)
is the end of all the other arts, which can only be attained by
a corresponding change in the knowing subject. Thus all
these arts objectify the will indirectly only by means of the
Ideas; and since our world is nothing but the manifestation
of the Ideas in multiplicity, though their entrance into the
frinctfium indhnduationis (the form of the knowledge pos-
sible for the individual as such), music also, since it passes
over the Ideas, is entirely independent of the phenomenal
world, ignores it altogether, could to a certain extent exist
if there was no world at all, which cannot be said of the
other arts. Music is as direct an objectification and copy of
the whole will as the world itself, nay, even as the Ideas,
whose multiplied manifestation constitutes the world of in-
dividual things. Music is thus by no means like the other
arts, the copy of the Ideas, but the cofy of the will itself ^
whose objectivity the Ideas are. This is why the effect of
music is so much more powerful and penetrating than that
of the other arts, for they speak only of shadows, but iv
speaks of the thing itself. Since, however, it is the same will
which objectifies itself both in the Ideas and in music,
though in quite different ways, there must be, not indeed a
direct likeness, but yet a parallel, an analogy, between music
and the Ideas whose manifestation in multiplicity and in-
completeness is the visible world. The establishing of this
analogy will facilitate, as an illustration, the understanding
of this exposition, which is so difficult on account of the
obscurity of the subject.

202 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

I recognise in the deepest tones of harmony, in the bass,
the lowest grades of the objectification of will, unorganised
nature, the mass of the planet. It is well known that all the
high notes which are easily sounded, and die away more
quickly, are produced by the vibration in their vicinity of
the deep bass note. When, also, the low notes sound, the
high notes always sound faintly, and it is a law of harmony
that only those high notes may accompany a bass note which
actually already sound along with it of themselves (its sons
harmonlques) on account of its vibration. This is analogous
to the fact that the whole of the bodies and organisations of
nature must be regarded as having come into existence
through gradual development out of the mass of the planet;
this is both their supporter and their source, and the same
relation subsists between the high notes and the bass. There
is a limit of depth, below which no sound is audible. This
corresponds to the fact that no matter can be perceived
without form and quality, i.e.y without the manifestation of
a force which cannot be further explained, in which an Idea
expresses itself, and, more generally^ that no matter can be
entirely without will. Thus, as a certain pitch is inseparable
from the note as such, so a certain grade of the manifesta-
tion of will is inseparable from matter. Bass is thus, for us,
in harmony what unorganised nature, the crudest mass,
upon which all rests, and from which everything originates
and develops, is in the world. Now, further, in the whole of
the complemented parts which make up the harmony be-
tween the bass and the leading voice singing the melody, I
recognise the whole gradation of the Ideas in which the will
objectifies itself. Those nearer to the bass are the lower of
these grades, the still unorganised, but yet manifold phe-
nomenal things; the higher represent to me the world of
plants and beasts. The definite intervals of the scale are
parallel to the definite grades of the objectification of will,
the definite species in nature. The departure from the arith-

THE WORLD AS IDEA 203

metical correctness of the intervals, through some tempera-
ment, or produced by the key selected, is analogous to the
departure of the individual from the type of the species.
Indeed, even the impure discords, which give no definite in-
terval, may be compared to the monstrous abortions pro-
duced by beasts of two species, or by man and beast. But to
all these bass and complemental parts which make up the
harmony there is wanting that connected progress which
belongs only to the high voice singing the melody, and it
alone moves quickly and lightly in modulations and runs,
while all these others have only a slower movement without
a connection in each part for itself. The deep bass moves
most slowly, the representative of the crudest mass. Its ris-
ing and falling occurs only by large intervals, in thirds,
fourths, fifths, never by one tone, unless it is a bass inverted
by double counterpoint. This slow movement is also phys-
ically essential to it; a quick run or shake in the low notes
cannot even be imagined. The higher complemental parts,
which are parallel to animal life, move more quickly, but
yet without melodious connection and significant progress.
The disconnected course of all the complemental parts, and
their regulation by definite laws, is analogous to the fact
that in the whole irrational world, from the crystal to the
most perfect animal, no being has a connected consciousness
of its own which would make its life into a significant
whole, and none experiences a succession of mental develop-
ments, none perfects itself by culture, but everything exists
always in the same way according to its kind, determined by
fixed law. Lastly, in the melody y in the high, singing, prin-
cipal voice leading the whole and progressing with unre-
strained freedom, in the unbroken significant connection of
one thought from beginning to end representing a whole, I
recognise the highest grade of the objectification of will,
the intellectual life and effort of man. As he alone, because
endowed with reason, constantly looks before and after on

204 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

the path of his actual life and its innumerable possibilities,
and so achieves a course of life which is intellectual, and
therefore connected as a whole; corresponding to this, I say,
the melody has significant intentional connection from be-
ginning to end. It records, therefore, the history of the in-
tellectually-enlightened will. This will expresses itself in
the actual world as the series of its deeds; but melody says
more, it records the most secret history of this intellectually-
enlightened will, pictures every excitement, every effort,
every movement of it, all that which the reason collects un-
der the wide and negative concept of feeling, and which it
cannot apprehend further through its abstract concepts.
Therefore it has always been said that music is the language
of feeling and of passion, as words are the language of
reason. Plato explains it as rj icov fxeXcov Kivrjoig fiSfiifirjiiEvi],
£v loig naOrjfiaoiv oiav ipvxrj yiV7]iai (melodiarum motus,
animi affectus imitans^y De Leg. vii.; and also Aristotle says:
hia Ti oi fvOfxoi KGi xa /ueXr), <f>covr] ovoa, rjOeoiv eoiks (^cur
numer'i mus'ici et modiy qui voces sunt, moribus similes sese
exhibent?)^ Probl. c. 19.

Now the nature of man consists in this, that his will
strives, is satisfied and strives anew, and so on for ever.
Indeed, his happiness and well-being consist simply in the
quick transition from wish to satisfaction, and from satis-
faction to a new wish. For the absence of satisfaction is suf-
fering, the empty longing for a new wish, languor, ennui.
And corresponding to this the nature of melody is a constant
digression and deviation from the keynote in a thousand
ways, not only to the harmonious intervals to the third and
dominant, but to every tone, to the dissonant sevenths and to
the superfluous degrees; yet there always follows a constant
return to the keynote. In all these deviations melody ex*
presses the multifarious efforts of will, but always its satis-
faction also by the final return to an harmonious interval,
and still more, to the keynote. The composition of melody,

THE WORLD AS IDEA 205

the disclosure in it of all the deepest secrets of human wilK
ing and feeling, is the work of genius, whose action, which
is more apparent here than anywhere else, lies far from all
reflection and conscious intention, and may be called an
inspiration. The conception is here, as everywhere in art,
unfruitful. The composer reveals the inner nature of the
world, and expresses the deepest wisdom in a language which
his reason does not understand; as a person under the influ-
ence of mesmerism tells things of which he has no conception
when he awakes. Therefore in the composer, more than in
any other artist, the man is entirely separated and distinct
from the artist. Even in the explanation of this wonderful
art, the concept shows its poverty and limitation. I shall try,
however, to complete our analogy. As quick transition from
wish to satisfaction, and from satisfaction to a new wish, is
happiness and well-being, so quick melodies without great
deviations are cheerful; slow melodies, striking painful dis-
cords, and only winding back through many bars to the key*
note art, as analogous to the delayed and hardly won satis-
faction, sad. The delay of the new excitement of will, lan-
guor, could have no other expression than the sustained key-
note, the eflPect of which would soon be unbearable; very
monotonous and unmeaning melodies approach this effect.
The short intelligible subjects of quick dance-music seem to
speak only of easily attained common pleasure. On the other
hand, the Allegro maestoso, in elaborate movements, long
passages, and wide deviations, signifies a greater, nobler ef-
fort towards a more distant end, and its final attainment.
The Adagio speaks of the pain of a great and noble effort
which despises all trifling happiness. But how wonderful is
the effect of the minor and m^jor! How astounding ihat the
change of half a tone, the entrance of a minor third instead
of a major, at once and inevitably forces upon us an anxious
painful feeling, from which again we are just as instan-
taneously delivered by the major. The Adagio lengthens in

2o6 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

the minor the expression of the keenest pain, and becomes
even a convulsive wail. Dance-music in the minor seems to
indicate the failure of that trifling happiness w^hich we ought
rather to despise, seems to speak of the attainment of a
lower end with toil and trouble. The inexhaustibleness of
possible melodies corresponds to the inexhaustibleness of
Nature in difference of individuals, physiognomies, and
courses of life. The transition from one key to an entirely
different one, since it altogether breaks the connection with
what went before, is like death, for the individual ends in
it; but the will which appeared in this individual lives after
him as before him, appearing in other individuals, whose
consciousness, however, has no connection with his.

But it must never be forgotten, in the investigation of all
these analogies I have pointed out, that music has no direct,
but merely an indirect relation to them, for it never expresses
the phenomenon, but only the inner nature, the in-itself of
all phenomena, the will itself. It does not therefore express
this or that particular and definite joy, this or that sorrow,
or pain, or horror, or delight, or merriment, or peace of
mind; but joy, sorrow, pain, horror, delight, merriment,
peace of mind themselves y to a certain extent in the abstract,
their essential nature, without accessories, and therefore
without their motives. Yet we completely understand them
in this extracted quintessence. Hence it arises that our imagi-
nation is so easily excited by music, and now seeks to give
form to that invisible yet actively moved spirit-world which
speaks to us directly, and clothe it with flesh and blood, i.e.,
to embody it m an analogous example. This is the origin of
the song with words, and finally of the opera, the text of
whic^ should therefore never forsake that subordinate posi-
tion in order to make itself the chief thing and the music a
mere means of expressing it, which is a great misconception
and a piece of utter perversity; for music always expresses
only the quintessence of life and its events, never these

THE WORLD AS IDEA 207

themselves, and therefore their dffferencs do not always af-
fect it. It is precisely this universality, which belongs exclu-
sively to it, together with the greatest determinateness, that
gives music the high worth which it has as the panacea for all
our woes. Thus, if music is too closely united to the words,
and tries to form itself according to the events, it is striving
to speak a language which is not its own. No one has kept so
free from this mistake as Rossini; therefore his music speaks
its own language so distinctly and purely that it requires no
words, and produces its full effect when rendered by instru-
ments alone.

According to all this, we may regard the phenomenal
world, or nature, and music as two different expressions of
the same thing, which is therefore itself the only medium of
their analogy, so that a knowledge of it is demanded in order
to understand that analogy. Music, therefore, if regarded as
an expression of the world, is in the highest degree a univer-
sal language, which is related indeed to the universality of
concepts, much as they are related to the particular things.
Its universality, however, is by no means that empty univer-
sality of abstraction, but quite of a different kind, and is
united with thorough and distinct definiteness. In this respect
it resembles geometrical figures and numbers, which are the
universal forms of all possible objects of experience and ap-
plicable to them all a friori, and yet are not abstract but per-
ceptible and thoroughly determined. All possible efforts,
excitements, and manifestations of will, all that goes on in
the heart of man and that reason includes in the wide, nega-
tive concept of feeling, may be expressed by the infinite num-
ber of possible melodies, but always in the universal, in the
mere form, without the material, always according to the
thing-in-itself, not the phenomenon, the inmost soul, as it
were, of the phenomenon, without the body. This deep rela*
tion which music has to the true nature of all things also ex-
plains the fact that suitable music played to any scene, action^

>o8 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

event, or surrounding seems to disclose to us its most secret
meaning, and appears as the most accurate and distinct com-
mentary upon it. This is so truly the case, that whoever gives
himself up entirely to the impression of a symphony, seems to
see all the possible events of life and the world take place in
himself, yet if he reflects, he can find no likeness between the
music and the things that passed before his mind. For, as we
have said, music is distinguished from all the other arts by the
fact that it is not a copy of the phenomenon, or, more accu-
rately, the adequate objectivity of will, but is the direct copy
of the will itself, and therefore exhibits itself as the meta-
physical to everything physical in the world, and as the thing-
in-itself to every phenomenon. We might, therefore, just as
well call the world embodied music as embodied will; and
this is the reason why music makes every picture, and indeed
every scene of real life and of the world, at once appear with
higher significance, certainly all the more in proportion as its
melody is analogous to the inner spirit of the given phenom-
enon. It rests upon this that we are able to set a poem to music
as a song, or a perceptible representation as a pantomime, or
both as an opera. Surh particular pictures of human life, set
to the universal language of music, are never bound to it or
correspond to it with stringent necessity; but they stand to it
only in the relation of an example chosen at will to a general
concept. In the determinateness of the real, they represent
that which music expresses in the universality of mere form.
For melodies are to a certain extent, like general concepts,
an abstraction from the actual. This actual world, then, the
Vv'orld of particular things, aflFords the object of perception,
the special and individual, the particular case, both to the uni-
versality of the concepts and to the universality of the melo-
dies. But these two universalities are in a certain respect op-
posed to each other ; for the concepts contain particulars only
as the first forms abstracted from perception, as it were, the
separated shell of things; thus they are, strictly speaking, ab'

THE WORLD AS IDEA 209

Hracta; music, on the other hand, gives the inmost kernel
which precedes all forms, or the heart of things. This rela-
tion may be very v^^ell expressed in the language of the
schoolmen by saying the concepts are the unwersalia fost
rerriy but music gives the unwersalia ante reiUy and the real
world the unwersalia in re. To the universal significance of
a melody to which a poem has been set, it is quite possible to
set other equally arbitrarily selected examples of the uni-
versal expressed in this poem corresponding to the signifi-
cance of the melody in the same degree. This is why the
same composition is suitable to many verses; and this is also
what makes the vaudeville possible. But that in general a re-
lation is possible between a composition and a perceptible rep-
resentation rests, as we have said, upon the fact that both arr,
simply different expressions of the same inner being of the
world. When now, in the particular case, such a relation is
actually given, that is to say, when the composer has been
able to express in the universal language of music tlie emo-
tions of will which constitute the heart of an event, then
the melody of the song, the music of the opera, is expres-
sive. But the analogy discovered by the composer between the
two must have proceeded from the direct knowledge of the
nature of the world unknown to his reason, and must not be
an imitation produced with conscious intention by means of
conceptions, otherwise the music does not express the inner
nature of the will itself, but merely gives an inadequate imi-
tation of its phenomenon. All Specially imitative music does
this; for example, "The Seasons," by Haydn; also many
passages of his "Creation," in which phenomena of the ex-
ternal world are directly imitated; also all battle-pieces. Such
music is entirely to be rejected.

The unutterable depth of all music by virtue of which it
floats through our consciousness as the vision of a paradise
firmly believed in yet ever distant from us, and by which
also it is so fully understood and yet so inexplicable, rests on

110 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

the fact that it restores to us all the emotions of our inmost
nature, but entirely without reality and far removed from
their pain. So also the seriousness which is essential to it,
which excludes the absurd from its direct and peculiar prov-
ince, is to be explained by the fact that its object is not the
idea, with reference to which alone deception and absurdity
are possible; but its object is directly the will, and this is
essentially the most serious of all things, for it is that on
which all depends. How rich in content and full of signifi-
cance the language of music is, we see from the repetitions,
as well as the Da cafOy the like of which would be unbear-
able in works composed in a language of words, but in music
are very appropriate and beneficial, for, in order to compre-
hend it fully, we must hear it twice.

In the whole of this exposition of music I have been try-
ing to bring out clearly that it expresses in a perfectly uni-
Tersal language, in a homogeneous material, mere tones,
and with the greatest determinateness and truth, the inner
nature, the in-itself of the world, which we think under the
concept of will, because will is its most distinct manifesta-
tion. Further, according to my view and contention, philoso-
phy is nothing but a complete and accurate repetition or
expression of the nature of the world in very general con-
cepts, for only in such is it possible to get a view of that
whole nature which will everywhere be adequate and appli-
cable. Thus, whoever has followed me and entered into my
mode of thought, will not think it so very paradoxical if I
say, that supposing it were possible to give a perfectly ac-
curate, complete explanation of music, extending even to
particulars, that is to say, a detailed repetition in concepts of
what it expresses, this would also be a suflicient repetition
and explanation of the world in concepts, or at least en-
tirely parallel to such an explanation, and thus it would be
the true philosophy. Consequently the saying of Leibnitz
quoted above, which is quite accurate from p lower stand-

THE WORLD AS IDEA 211

point, may be parodied in the following way to suit our
higher view of music: Musica est exercitium metafhy sices
occultum nesc'tentis se fhilosofhari ammi; for scire y to
Know, always means to have fixed in abstract concepts. But
further, on account of the truth of the saying of Leibnitz,
which is confirmed in various ways, music, regarded apart
from its aesthetic or inner significance, and looked at merely
externally and purely empirically, is simply the means of
comprehending directly and in the concrete large numbers
and complex relations of numbers, which otherwise we
could only know indirectly by fixing them in concepts.
Therefore by the union of these two very different but cor-
rect views of music we may arrive at a conception of the
possibility of a philosophy of number, such as that of Pythag-
oras and of the Chinese in Y-King, and then interpret in
this sense the saying of the Pythagoreans which Sextus Em-
piricus quotes (adv. Math., L. vii.): tea afiOfico 8s la navx^
£71€01k£v (numero cuncta assimilantur). And if, finally,
we apply this view to the interpretation of harmony and
melody given above, we shall find that a mere moral philoso-
phy without an explanation of Nature, such as Socrates
wanted to introduce, is precisely analogous to a mere melody
without harmony, which Rousseau exclusively desired; and.
in opposition to this mere physics and metaphysics without
Ethics, will correspond to mere harmony without melody.
Allow me to add to these cursory observations a few more
remarks concerning the analogy of music with the pheno-
menal world. We found in the second book that the highest
grade of the objectification of will, man, could not appear
alone and isolated, but presupposed the grades below him, as
these again presupposed the grades lower still. In the same
way music, which directly objectifies the will, just as the
world aoes, is complete only in full harmony. In order to
achieve its full effect, the high leading voice of the melody
reo'uires the accompaniment of all the other voices, even to

ii2 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER'

the lowest bass, which is to be regarded as the origin of all.
The melody itself enters as an integral part into the har-
mony, as the harmony enters into it, and only thus, in the
full harmonious whole, music expresses what it aims at
jxpressing. Thus also the one will outside of time finds its
full objectification only in the complete union of all the
steps which reveal its nature in the innumerable ascending
grades of distinctness. The following analogy is also very
remarkable. We have seen in the preceding book that not-
withstanding the self -adaptation of all the phenomena of
will to each other as regards their species, which constitutes
their teleological aspect, there yet remains an unceasing
conflict between those phenomena as individuals, which is
visible at every grade, and makes the world a constant
battle-field of all those manifestations of one and the same
will, whose inner contradiction with itself becomes visible
through it. In music also there is something corresponding
to this. A complete, pure, harmonious system of tones is not
only physically but arithmetically impossible. The numbers
themselves by which the tones are expressed have inextri-
cable irrationality. There is no scale in which, when it is
counted, every fifth will be related to the keynote as 2 to 3,
every major third as 4 to 5, every minor third as 5 to 6, and
so on. For if they are correctly related to the keynote, they
can no longer be so to each other; because, for example, the
fifth must be the minor third to the third, &c. For the notes
of the scale may be compared to actors who must play now
one part, now another. Therefore a perfectly accurate sys-
tem of music cannot even be thought, far less worked out;
And on this account all possible music deviates from perfect
purity; it can only conceal the discords essential to it by di-
viding them among all the notes, i.e.y by temperament. On
this see Chladni's "Akustik," § 30, and his "Kurze Ueber*
sicht der Schall- und Klanglehre." ^

^ Cf. Ch. xxxix. of Supplement.

THE WORLD AS IDEA ai^J

I might still have something to say about the way in
srhich music is perceived, namely, in and through time alone,
with absolute exclusion of space, and also apart from the in-
fluence of the knowledge of causality, thus without under-
standing; for the tones make the aesthetic impression as
effect, and without obliging us to go back to their causes, as
in the case of perception. 1 do not wish, however, to lengthen
this discussion, as I have perhaps already gone too much into
detail with regard to some things in this Third Book, or
have dwelt too much on particulars. But my aim made it
necessary, and it will be the less disapproved if the impor-
tance and high worth of art, which is seldom sufficiently
recognised, be kept in mind. For if, according to our view,
the whole visible world is just the objectification, the mirror,
of the will, conducting it to knowledge of itself, and, in-
deed, as we shall soon see, to the possibility of its deliver-
ance; and if, at the same time, the world as idea, if we
regard it in isolation, and, freeing ourselves from all voli-
tion, allow it alone to take possession of our consciousness,
is the most joy-giving and the only innocent side of life; we
must regard art as the higher ascent, the more complete de-
velopment of all this, for it achieves essentially just what is
achieved by the visible world itself, only with greater con-
centration, more perfectly, with intention and intelligence,
and therefore may be called, in the full significance of the
word, the flower of life. If the whole world as idea is only
the visibility of will, the work of art is to render this visi-
bility more distinct. It is the camera obscura which shows
the objects more purely, and enables us to survey them and
comprehend them better. It is the play within the play, the
stage upon the stage in "Hamlet."

The pleasure we receive from all beauty, the consolation
which art affords, the enthusiasm cf the artist, which en-
ables him to forget the cares of life, — the latter an advan-
tage of the man of genius over other men, which alontf

214 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

repays him for the suffering that increases in proportion to
the clearness of consciousness, and for the desert loneliness
among men of a different race, — all this rests on the fact
that the in-itself of life, the will, existence itself, is, as we
shall see farther on, a constant sorrow, partly miserable,
partly terrible; while, on the contrary, as idea alone, purely
contemplated, or copied by art, free from pain, it presents
to us a drama full of significance. This purely knowable
side of the world, and the copy of it in any art, is the ele-
ment of the artist. He is chained to the contemplation of the
play, the objectification of will; he remains beside it, does
not get tired of contemplating it and representing it in cop-
ies; and meanwhile he bears himself the cost of the pro-
duction of that play, i.e., he himself is the will which
objectifies itself, and remains in constant suffering. That
pure, true, and deep knowledge of the inner nature of the
world becomes now for him an end in itself: he stops there.
Therefore it does not become to him a quieter of the will,
as, we shall see in the next book, it does in the case of the
saint who has attained to resignation; it does not deliver h;m
for ever from life, but only at moments, and is there foi«
not for him a path out of life, but only an occasional con-
solation in it, till his power, increased by this contemplation
and at last tired of the play, lays hold on the real. The St.
Cecilia of Raphael may be regarded as a representation of
this transition. To the real, then, we now turn in the fol-
lowing book.

Fourth Book
THE WORLD AS WILL

SECOND ASPECT

THE ASSERTION AND DENIAL OF THE WILL TO LIVE, WHEM
SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS HAS BEEN ATTAINED

Tempore quo cog;nitio simul advenit, amor e medio supersurrexit.— =
Oupnek'hat, Studio Anquetil Duperron, voL ii. p. 216,

§ 54* The first three books will, it is hoped, have con-
veyed the distinct and certain knowledge that tli£_ world a^
idea is the complete mirror of the will, in which it knows
itself in ascending grades of distinctness and compkteness,
the highest of which is man, whose nature, however, re-
ceives its complete expression only through the whole con-
nected series of his actions. The self-conscious connection
of these actions is made possible by reason, which enables a
man constantly to survey the whole in the abstract.

The will, which, considered purely in itself, is without
knowledge, and is merely a blind incessant impulse, as we
see it appear in unorganised and vegetable nature and their
laws, and also in the vegetative part of our own life, re-
ceives through the addition of the world as idea, which is
developed in subjection to it, the knowledge of its own will-
ing and of v/hat it is that it wills. And this is nothing else
than the world as idea, life, precisely as it exists. Therefore
we called the phenomenal world the mirror of the will, its
objectivity. And since what the will wills is alwavs life,
just because life is nothing but the representation of that
willing for the idea, it is all one and a mere pleonism if,
instead of simply saying "the will," we say, "the will to
live."

Will is the thing-in-itself, the inner content, the essence
©f the world. Life, the visible world, the phenomenon, is
only the mirror of the will. Therefore life accompanies the
will as inseparably as the shadow accompanies the body;
and if will exists, so will life, the world, exist. Life is,
therefore, ass^ired to the will to live; and so long as we are
filled with the will to live we need have no fear for our
existence, even in the presence of death. It is true we see thft
individual come into being and pass away; but the indi'

217

2i8 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

vidual is only phenomenal, exists only for the knowledge
which is bound to the principle of sufficient reason, to the
princifium individuationis. Certainly, for this kind of knowl-
edge, the individual receives his life as a gift, rises out of
nothing, then suffers the loss of this gift through death, and
returns again to nothing. But we desire to consider life
philosophically, i.e., according to its Ideas, and in this sphere
we shall find that neither the will, the thing-in-itself in all
phenomena, nor the subject of knowing, that which per-
ceives all phenomena, is affected at all by birth or by death.
Birth and death belong merely to the phenomenon of will,
thus to life; and it is essential to this to exhibit itself in in-
dividuals which come into being and pass away, as fleeting
phenomena appearing in the form of time — phenomena of
that which in itself knows no time, but must exhibit itself
precisely in the way we have said, in order to objectify its
peculiar nature. Birth and death belong in like manner to
life, and hold the balance as reciprocal conditions of each
other, or, if one likes the expression, as poles of the whole
phenomenon of life. The wisest of all mythologies, the In-
dian, expresses this by giving to the very god that symbolises
destruction, death (as Brahma, the most sinful and the low-
est god of the Trimurti, symbolises generation, coming into
being, and Vishnu maintaining or preserving), by giving,
I say, to Siva as an attribute not only the necklace of skulls,
but also the lingam, the symbol of generation, which ap-
pears here as the counterpart of death, thus signifying that
generation and death are essentially correlatives, which re-
ciprocally neutralise and annul each other. It was precisely
the same sentiment that led the Greeks and Romans to
adorn their costly sarcophagi, just as we see them now, with
feasts, dances, marriages, the chase, fights of wild beasts,
bacchanalians, &c.; thus with representations of the full
ardour of life, which they place before us not only in such
revels and sports, but also in sensual groups, and even go so

THE WORLD AS WILL 219

far as to represent the sexual intercourse of satyrs and goats*
Clearly the aim was to point in the most impressive mannei
away from the death of the mourned individual to the im*
mortal life of nature, and thus to indicate, though without
abstract knowledge, that the whole of nature is the phe-
nomenon and also the fulfilment of the will to live. Tht
form of this phenomenon is time, space, and causality, and
by means of these individuation, which carries with it that
the individual must come into being and pass away. But this
no more affects the will to live, of whose manifestation the
individual is, as it were, only a particular example or speci-
men, than the death of an individual injures the whole of
nature. For it is not the individual, but only the species that
Nature cares for, and for the preservation of which she so
earnestly strives, providing for it with the utmost prodi-
gality through the vast surplus of the seed and the great
strength of the fructifying impulse. The individual^ on the
contrary, neither has nor can have any value for Nature,
for her kingdom is infinite time and infinite space, and in
these infinite multiplicity of possible individuals. Therefore
she is always ready to let the individual fall, and hence it is
not only exposed to destruction in a thousand ways by the
most insignificant accident, but originally destined for it,
and conducted towards it by Nature herself from the mo-
ment it has served its end of maintaining the species. Thu?
Nature naively expresses the great truth that only the IdeaSj
not the individuals, have, properly speaking, reality, i.<?.,
are complete objectivity of the will. Now, since man is Na-
ture itself, and indeed Nature at the highest grade of its
self-consciousness, but Nature is only the objectified will to
live, the man who has comprehended and retained this point
of view may well console himself, when contemplating his
own death and that of his friends, by turning his eyes to the
immortal life of Nature, which he himself is. This is the sig-
nificance of Siva with the lingam, and of those ancient sar-

220 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

cophagi with their pictures of glowing life, which say to
che mourning beholder, Natura non contnstatur.

Above all things, we must distinctly recognise that the
form of the phenomenon of will, the form of life or
reality, is really only the fresenty not the future nor the past.
The latter are only in the conception, exist only in the con-
nection of knowledge, so far as it follows the principle of
sufficient reason. No man has ever lived in the past, and
none will live in the future; the f resent alone is the form
of all life, and is its sure possession which can never be
taken from it. The present always exists, together with its
content. Both remain fixed without wavering, like the rain-
bow on the waterfall. For life is firm and certain in the
will, and the present is firm and certain in life. Certainly,
if we reflect on the thousands of years that are past, of the
millions of men who lived in them, we ask, What were
they? what has become of them? But, on the other hand,
we need only recall our own past life and renew its scenes
vividly in our imagination, and then ask again, What was
all this? what has become of it? As it is with it, so is it with
the life of those millions. Or should we suppose that the
past could receive a new existence because it has been sealed
by death? Our own past, the most recent part of it, and even
yesterday, is now no more than an empty dream of the
fancy, and such is the past of all those millions. What was?
What is? The will, of which life is the mirror, and knowl-
edge free from will, which beholds it clearly in that mirror.
Whoever has not yet recognised this, or will not recognise
it, must add to the question asked above as to the fate of
past generations of men this question also: Why he, the
questioner, is so fortunate as to be conscious of this costly,
fleeting, and only real present, while those hundreds of gen-
erations of men, even the heroes and philosophers of those
A£es, have sunk into the night of the past, and have thus be-
come nothing; but he, his insignificant ego, actually exists?

THE WORLD AS WILL 221

or more shortly, though somewhat strangely: Why this
now, his now, is just now and was not long ago? Since he
asks such strange questions, he regards his existence and his
time as independent of each other, and the former as pro^
jected into the latter. He assumes indeed two nows — one
which belongs to the object, the other which belongs to the
subject, and marvels at the happy accident of their coinci«
dence. But in truth, only the point of contact of the object,
the form of which is time, with the subject, which has no
mode of the principle of sufficient reason as its form, con-
stitutes the present, as is shown in the essay on the principle
of sufficient reason. Now all object is the will so far as it
has become idea, and the subject is the necessary coi relative
of the object. But real objects are only in the present; th6
past and the future contain only conceptions and fancies,
therefore the present is the essential form of the phenom-
enon of the will, and inseparable from it. The present alone
is that which always exists and remains immovable. That
which, empirically apprehended, is the most transitory of
all, presents itself to the metaphysical vision, which sees be-
yond the forms of empirical perception, as that which alone
endures, the nunc stans of the schoolmen. The source and
the supporter of its content is the will to live or the thing-
in-itself, — which we are. That which constantly becomes
and passes away, in that it has either already been or is still
to be, belongs to the phenomenon as such on account of its
forms, which make coming into being and passing away
possible. Accordingly, we must think: — Quid fuitP — Quod
est. Quid erit? — Quod fuit; and take it in the strict mean-
ing of the words; thus understand not simile but idem. For
life is certain to the will, and the present is certain to life.
Thus it is that every one can say, "I am once for all lord of
the present, and through all eternity it will accompany me
as my shadow: therefore I do not wonder where it has come
from, and how it happens thai it is exactly now." We might

222 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

compare time to a constantly revolving sphere; the half that
was always sinking would be the past, that which was al-
ways rising would be the future; but the indivisible point at
the top, where the tangent touches, would be the extension-
less present. As the tangent does not revolve with the sphere,
neither does the present, the point of contact of the object,
^he form of which is time, with the subject, which has no
form, because it does not belong to the knowable, but is the
condition of all that is knowable. Or, time is like an un-
ceasing stream, and the present a rock on which the stream
breaks itself, but does not carry away with it. The will, as
thing-in-itself, is just as little subordinate to the principle of
sufficient reason as the subject of knowledge, which, finally,
in a certain regard is the will itself or its expression. And as
life, its own phenomenon, is assured to the will, so is the
present, the single form of real life. Therefore we have
not to investigate the past before life, nor the future after
death: we have rather to know the fresenty the one form in
which the will manifests itself. It will not escape from the
will, but neither will the will escape from it. If, therefore,
life as it is satisfies, whoever affirms it in every way may
regard it with confidence as endless, and banish the fear of
death as an illusion that inspires him with the foolish dread
that he can ever be robbed of the present, and foreshadows
a time in which there is no present; an illusion with regard
to time analogous to the illusion with regard to space
through which every one imagines the position on the globe
he happens to occupy as above, and all other places as below.
In the same way every one links the present to his own in-
dividuality, and imagines that all present is extinguished
with it; that then past and future might be without a present.
But as on the surface of the globe every place is above, so
the form of all life is the f resent j and to fear death because
it robs us of the present, is just as foolish as to fear that we
may slip down from the round globe upon which we have

THE WORLD AS WILL 223'

now the good fortune to occupy the upper surface. The
present is the form essential to the objectification of the
will. It cuts time, which extends infinitely in both directions,
as a mathematical point, and stands immovably fixed, like
an everlasting mid-day with no cool evening, as the actual
sun burns without intermission, while it only seems to sink
into the bosom of night. Therefore, if a man fears deatt
as his annihilation, it is just as if he were to think that the
sun cries out at evening, "Woe is me! for I go down into
eternal night." And conversely, whoever is oppressed with
the burden of life, whoever desires life and affirms it, but
abhors its torments, and especially can no longer endure
the hard lot that has fallen to himself, such a man has no
deliverance to hope for from death, and cannot right him-
self by suicide. The cool shades of Orcus allure him only
with the false appearance of a haven of rest. The earth rolls
from day into night, the individual dies, but the sun itself
shines without intermission, an eternal noon. Life is assured
to the will to live; the form of life is an endless present,
no matter how the individuals, the phenomena of the Idea,
arise and pass away in time, like fleeting dreams. Thus
even already suicide appears to us as a vain and therefore
a foolish action; when we have carried our investigation
further it will appear to us in a still less favourable light.
But this that we have brought to clearest consciousness,
that although the particular phenomenon of the will has
a temporal beginning and end, the will itself as thing-in-
itself 'S not affected by it, nor yet the correlative of all
object, the knowing but never known subject, and that
life is always assured to the will to live — this is not to be
numbered with the doctrines of immortality. For perma-
nence has no more to do with the will or with the pure sub-
ject of knowing, the eternal eye of the world, than transi-
toriness, for both are predicates that are only valid in time,
and the will and the pure subject of knowing lie outside

224 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

time. Therefore the egoism of the individual (this par-
ticular phenomenon of will enlightened by the subject of
knowing) can extract as little nourishment and consola-
tion for his wish to endure through endless time from the
view we have expressed, as he could from the knowledge
that after his death the rest of the eternal world would
continue to exist, which is just the expression of the same
view considered objectively, and therefore temporally. For
every individual is transitcry only as phenomenon, but as
thing-in-itself is timeless, and therefore endless. But it is
also only as phenomenon that an individual is distinguished
from the other things of the world; as thing-in-itself he
is the will which appears in all, and death destroys the illu-
sion which separates his consciousness from that of the rest:
this is immortality. His exemption from death, which be-
longs to him only as thing-in-itself, is for the phenomenon
one with the immortality of the rest of the external world.
Hence also, it arises that although the inward and merely
felt consciousness of that which we have raised to distinct
knowledge is indeed, as we have said, sufficient to prevent
the thought of death from poisoning the life of the rational
being, because this consciousness is the basis of that love of
life which maintains everything living, and enables it to
live on at ease as if there were no such thing as death, so
long as it is face to face with life, and turns its attention
to it, yet it will not prevent the individual from being
seized with the fear of death, and trying in every way to
escape from it, when it presents itself to him in some par-
ticular real case, or even only in his imagination, and he
is compelled t<) contemplate it. For just as, so long as his
knowledge was directed to life as such, he was obliged to
recognise immortality in it, so when death is brought before
his eyes, he is obliged to recognise it as that which it is, the
temporal end of the particular temporal phenomenon.
What we fear in death is by no means the pain, for it lies

THE WORLD AS WILL 225

clearly on this side of death, and, moreover, we often take
refuge in death from pain, just as, on the contrary, we
sometimes endure the most fearful suffering merely to
escape death for a while, although it would be quick and
easy. Thus we distinguish pain and death as two entirely
diiferen*- evils. What we fear in death is the end of the
individual which it openly professes itself to be, and since
the individual is a particular objectification of the will to
live itself, its whole nature struggles against death. Now
when feeling thus exposes us helpless, reason can yet step
in and for the most part overcome its adverse influence,
for it places us upon a higher standpoint, from which we no
longer contemplate the particular but the whole. There-
fore a philosophical knowledge of the nature of the world,
which extended to the point we have now reached in this
work but went no farther, could even at this point of view
overcome the terror of death in the measure in which re-
flection had power over direct feeling in the given indi-
vidual. A man who had thoroughly assimilated the truths
we have already advanced, but had not come to know, either
from his own experience or from a deeper insight, that con-
stant suffering is essential to life, who found satisfaction
and all that he wished in life, and could calmly and de-
liberately desire that his life, as he had hitherto known it,
should endure for ever or repeat itself ever anew, and whose
love of life was so great that he willingly and gladly ac-
cepted all the hardships and miseries to which it is ex-
posed for the sake of its pleasures, — such a man would
stand "with firm-knit bones on the well-rounded, enduring
earth," and would have nothing to fear. Armed with the
knowledge we have given him, he would await with indif-
ference the death that hastens towards him on the wings of
time. He would regard it as a false illusion, an impotent
spectre, which frightens the weak but has no power over
him who knows that he is himself the will of which thq

226 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER •

whole world is the objectification or copy, and that there-
fore he is always certain of life, and also of the present, the
peculiar and only form of the phenomenon of the will.
He could not be terrified by an endles past or future in
which he would not be, for this he would regard as the
empty delusion of the web of Maya. Thus he would no
more fear death than the sun fears the night. In the "Bha-
gavad-Gita" Krishna thus raises the mind of his young pupil
Arjuna, when, seized with compunction at the sight of the
arrayed hosts (somewhat as Xerxes was), he loses heart and
desires to give up the battle in order to avert the death of
so many thousands. Krishna leads him to this point of view,
and the death of those thousands can no longer restrain
him; he gives the sign for battle. This point of view is also
expressed by Goethe's Prometheus, especially when he says — •

"Here sit I, form mankind
In my own image,
A race like to myself,
To suffer and to weep,
Rejoice, enjoy,
And heed thee not,
As I."

That the will asserts itself means, that while in its ob-
jectivity, i.e.y in the world and life, its own nature is com-
pletely and distinctly given it as idea, this knowledge does
not by any means check its volition; but this very life, so
known, is willed as such by the will with knowledge, con-
sciously and deliberately, just as up to this point it willed it
as blind effort without knowledge. The opposite of this, the
denial of the will to live, shows itself if, when that knowl-
edge is attained, volition ends, because the particular known
phenomena no longer act as motives for willing, but the
whole knowledge of the nature of the world, the mirror of
the will, which has grown up through the comprehension
of the IdeaSy becomes a quieter of the will; and thus free,
the will suppresses itself. These quite unfamiliar conceptions

THE WORLD AS WILL 227

are difficult to understand when expressed in chis general
way, but it is hoped they will become clear through the ex-
position we shall give presently, with special reference to
action, of the phenomena in which, on the one hand, the-
assertion in its different grades, and, on the other hand, the
denial, expresses itself. For both proceed from knowledge,
yet not from abstract knowledge, which is expressed Iia
words, but from living knowledge, which is expressed ii*
action and behaviour alone, and is independent of the dog-
mas which at the same time occupy the reason as abstract
knowledge. To exhibit them both, and bring them to dis-
tinct knowledge of the reason, can alone be my aim, and
not to prescribe or recommend the one or the other, which
would be as foolish as it would be useless; for the will in
itself is absolutely free and entirely self -determining, and
for it there is no law. But before we go on to the exposition
referred to, we must first explain and more exactly define
this freedom and its relation to necessity. And also, with
regard to the life, the assertion and denial of which is our
problem, we must insert a few general remarks connected
with the will and its objects. Through all this we shall
facilitate the apprehension of the inmost nature of the
knowledge we are aiming at, of the ethical significance of
methods of action.

§ 55. That the will as such Is free, follows from the fact
that, according to our view, it is the thing-in-itself, the con-
tent of all phenomena. The phenomena, on the other hand,
we recognise as absolutely subordinate to the principle of
sufficient reason in its four forms. And since we know that
necessity is throughout identical with follov/ing from given
grounds, and that these are convertible conceptions, all that
belongs to the phenomenon, i.e., all that is object for the
knowing subject as individual, is in one aspect reason, and
in another aspect consequent; and in this last capacity is
determined with absolute necessity, and can, therefore, in nf

Z28 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

vespect be other than it is. The whole content of Nature,
the collective sum of its phenomena, is thus throughout
necessary, and the necessity of every part, of every phenom-
enon, of every event, can alw^ays be proved, because it must
be possible to find the reason from which it follows as a
consequent. This admits of no exception: it follows from
the unrestricted validity of the principle of sufficient reason.
In another aspect, however, the same world is for us, in all
its phenomena, objectivity of will. And the will, since it is
not phenomenon, is not idea or object, but thing-in-itself,
and is not subordinate to the principle of sufficient reason,
the form of all object; thus is not determined as a conse-
quent through any reason, knows no necessity, i.e., is free.
The concept of freedom is thus properly a negative con-
cept, for its content is merely the denial of necessity, i.e.,
the relation of consequent to its reason, according to the
principle of sufficient reason. Now here lies before us in its
most distinct form the solution of that great contradiction,
the union of freedom with necessity, which has so often
been discussed in recent times, yet, so far as I know, never
clearly and adequately. Everything is as phenomenon, as
object, absolutely necessary: in itself it is will, which is per-
fectly free to all eternity. The phenomenon, the object, is
necessarily and unalterably determined in that chain of
causes and effects which admits of no interruption. But the
existence in general of this object, and its specific nature,
i.e., the Idea which reveals itself in it, or, in other words,
its character, is a direct manifestation of will. Thus, in con-
formity with the freedom of this will, the object might not
be at all, or it might be originally and essentially something
quite different from what it is, in which case, however, the
whole chain of which it is a link, and which is itself a mani-
festation of the same will, would be quite different also.
But once there and existing, it has entered the chain of
causes and effects, is always necessarily determined in it.

THE WORLD AS WILL 229

and can, therefore, neither become something else, i.e.,
change itself, nor yet escape from the chain, i.e., vanish.
Man, like every other part of Nature, is objectivity of the
will; therefore all that has been said holds good of him.
As everything in Nature has its forces and qualities, which
react in a definite way when definitely affected, and consti-
tute its character, man also has his charactevy from which
the motives call forth his actions with necessity. In thif
manner of conduct his empirical character reveals itself,
but in this again his intelligible character, the will in itself,
whose determined phenomenon he is. But man is the mosf:
complete phenomenon of will, and, as we explained in the
Second Book, he had to be enlightened with so high a degree
of knowledge in order to maintain himself in existence,
that in it a perfectly adequate copy or repetition of the na-
ture of the world under the form of the idea became pos'
sible: this is the comprehension of the Ideas, the pure mirror
of the world, as we learnt in the Third Book. Thus in man
the will can attain to full self-consciousness, to distinct and
exhaustive knowledge of its own nature, as it mirrors itself
in the whole world. We saw in the preceding book that art
springs from the actual presence of this degree of knowl-
edge; and at the end of our whole work it will further ap-
pear that, through the same knowledge, in that the will
relates it to itself, a suppression and self-denial of the will in
its most perfect manifestation is possible. So that the freedom
which otherwise, as belonging to the thing-in-itself, can
never show itself in the phenomenon, in such a case does
also appear in it, and, by abolishing the nature which lies at
the foundation of the phenomenon, while the latter itself
still continues to exist in time, it brings about r, contradic-*
tion of the phenomenon with itself, and in this way exhibits
the phenomena of holiness and self-renunciation. But all
this can only be fully understood at the end of this book.
What has just been said merely affor'^''^ a preliminary and

230 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

general indication of how man is distinguished from all the
other phenomena of will by the fact that freedom, i.e.y in-
dependence of the principle of sufficient reason, which only
belongs to the will as thing-in-itself, and contradicts the
phenomenon, may yet possibly, in his case, appear in the
phenomenon also, where, however, it necessarily exhibits
itself as a contradiction of the phenomenon with itself. In
this sense, not only the will in itself, but man also may cer-
tainly be called free, and thus distinguished from all other
beings. But how this is to be understood can only become
clear through all that is to follow, and for the present we
must turn away from it altogether. For, in the first place,
we must beware of the error that the action of the indi-
vidual definite man is subject to no necessity, i.e., that the
power of the motive is less certain than the power of the
cause, or the following of the conclusion from the premises.
The freedom of the will as thing-in-itself, if, as has been
said, we abstract from the entirely exceptional case men-
tioned above, by no means extends directly to its phenom-
enon, not even in the case in which this reaches the highest
grade of its visibility, and thus does not extend to the ra-
tional animal endowed with individual character, i.e., the
person. The person is never free although he is the phenom-
enon of a free will; for he is already the determined phe-
nomenon of the free volition of this will, and, because he
enters the form of every object, the principle of sufficient
reason, he develops indeed the unity of that will in a ?nul-
tiplicity of actions, but on account of the timeless unity of
that volition in itself, this multiplicity exhibits in itself the
regular conformity to law of a force of nature. Since,
however, it is that free volition that becomes visible in the
person and the whole of his conduct, relating itself to him
as the concept to the definition, every individual action of
the person is to be ascribed to the free will, and directly pro-
trlaims itself as such in consciousness. Therefore, as was

THE V/ORLD AS WILL 23 1

said in the Second Book, every one regards himself a priori
(i.e., here in this original feeling) as free in his individual
actions, in the sense that in every given case every action is
possible for him, and he only recognises a fosteriori from
experience and reflection upon experience that his actions
take place w^ith absolute necessity from the coincidence of
his character with his motives. Hence it arises that every
uncultured man, following his feeling, ardently defends
complete freedom in particular actions, while the great
thinkers of all ages, and indeed the more profound systems
of religion, have denied it. But whoever has come to see
clearly that the whole nature of man is will, and he himself
only a phenomenon of this will, and that such a phenom-
enon has, even from the subject itself, the principle of suf-
ficient reason as its necessary form, which here appears a?
the law of motivation, — such a man will regard it as just-
as absurd to doubt the inevitable nature of an action when
the motive is presented to a given character, as to doubt that
the three angles of any triangle are together equal to twc*
right angles.

Apart from the fact that the will as the true thing-in-
itself is actually original and independent, and that the
feeling of its originality and absoluteness must accompany
its acts in self -consciousness, though here they are already
determined, there arises the illusion of an empirical free-
dom of the will (instead of the transcendental freedom
\vliich alone is to be attributed to it), and thus a freedom
of its particular actions, from the attitude of the intellect
towards the will. The intellect knows the conclusions of
the will only a fosteriori and empirically; therefore when a
choice is prescrited, it has no data as to how the will is to de-
cide. For the intelligible character, by virtue of which,
when motives are given, only one decision is posiible and ie
therefore necessary, does not come within the knowledge 0/
ihe intellect, but merely the empirical character is knowt

632 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

to it through the succession of its particular acts. Therefore
it seems to the intellect that in a given case two opposite
decisions are possible for the will. But this is just the same
thing as if we were to say of a perpendicular beam that
has lost its balance, and is hesitating which way to fall, "It
can fall either to the right hand or the left." This can has
merely a subjective significance, and really means "as far
0S the data known to us are concerned," Objectively, the
direction of the fall is necessarily determined as soon as the
equilibrium is lost. Accordingly, the decision of one's own
will is undetermined only to the beholder, one's own in-
tellect, and thus merely relatively and subjectively for the
subject of knowing. In itself and objectively, on the other
hand, in every choice presented to it, its decision is at once
determined and n'"xessary. But this determination only comes
into consciousness through the decision that follows upon it.
Indeed, we /eceive an empirical proof of this when any
difficult and important choice lies before us, but only under
a condition which is not yet present, but merely hoped for,
so that in the meanwhile we can do nothing, but must re-
main passive. Now we consider how we shall decide when
the circumstances occur that will give us a free activity
and choice. Generally the foresight of rational deliberation
recommends one decision, while direct inclination leans
rather to the other. So long as we are compelled to remain
passive, the side of reason seems to wish to keep the upper-
hand; but we see beforehand how strongly the other side
will influence us when the opportunity for action arises.
Till then we are eagerly concerned to place the motives on
both sides in the clearest light, by calm meditation on the
fro et contrtty so that every motive may exert its full influ-
ence upon the will when the time arrives, and it may not be
misled by a mistake on the part of the intellect to decide
v^therwise than it would have done if all the motives had
their due influence upon it. But this distinct unfolding of

THE WORLD AS WILL 235

the motives on both sides is all that the intellect can do to
assist the choice. It awaits the real decision just as passively
and with the same intense curiosity as if it were that of a
foreign will. Therefore from its point of view both deci-
sions must seem to it equally possible; and this is just the
illusion of the empirical freedom of the will. Certainly
the decision enters the sphere of the intellect altogether
empirically, as the iinal conclusion of the matter; but yet it
proceeded from the inner nature, the intelligible character,
of the individual will in its conflict with given motives, and
therefore with complete necessity. The intellect can do
nothing more than bring out clearly and fully the nature
of the motives; it cannot determine the will itself; for the
will is quite inaccessible to it, and, as we have seen, cannot
be investigated.

The assertion of an empirical freedom of the will, i
liberum arbitrium indiff erentice y agrees precisely with the
doctrine that places the inner nature of man in a soul, which
is originally a knowingy and indeed really an abstract think-
ing nature, and only in consequence of this a willing nature
— a doctrine which thus regards the will as of a secondary
or derivative nature, instead of knowledge which is really
so. The will indeed came to be regarded as an act of
thought, and to be identified with the judgment, especially
by Descartes and Spinoza. According to this doctrine every
man must become what he is only through his knowledge;
he must enter the world as a moral cipher come to know the
things in it, and thereupon determine to be this or that, to
act thus or thus, and may also through new knowledge
achieve a new course of action, that is to say, become an-
other person. Further, he must first know a thing to be
goody and in consequence of this will it, instead of first
willing it, and in consequence of this calling it good. Ac-
cording to my fundamental point of view, all this is a
reversal of the true relation. Will is first and original;

234 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

knowledge is merely added to it as an instrument belonging
to the phenomenon of will. Therefore every man is what
he is through his will, and his character is original, for will-
ing is the basis of his nature. Through the knowledge which
is added to it he comes to know in the course of experience
what he is, i.e., he learns his character. Thus he knows him-
self in consequence of and in accordance with the nature .of
his will, instead of willing in consequence of and in ac-
cordance with his knowing. According to the latter view, he
would only require to consider how he would like best to be,
and he would be it; that is its doctrine of the freedom of the
will. Thus it consists really in this, that a man is his own
work guided by the light of knowledge. I, on the contrary,
say that he is his own work before all knowledge, and
knowledge is merely added to it to enlighten it. Therefore
he cannot resolve to be this or that, nor can he become other
than he is; but he is once for all, and he knows in the course
of experience what he is. According to one doctrine he wills
what he knows, and according to the other he knows what
he wills.

The motives which determine the manifestation of the
character or conduct influence it through the medium of
knowledge. But knowledge is changeable, and often vacil-
lates between truth and error, yet, as a rule, is rectified more
and more in the course of life, though certainly in very
different degrees. Therefore the conduct of a man may be
observedly altered without justifying us in concluding that
his character has been changed. What the man really and in
general wills, the striving of his inmost nature, and the end
he pursues in accordance with it, this we can never change
by influence upon him from without by instruction, other-
Ivise we could transform him. Seneca says admirably, velle
non discitur; whereby he preferred truth to his Stoic philoso-
phers, who taught BiSaKir]V sivai xrjv aQ£7r)v (doceri fosse
virtutem). From without the will can only be affected by

THE WORLD AS WILL 235

motives. But these can never change the will itself; for
they have power over it only under the presupposition that it
is precisely such as it is. All that they can do is thus to alter
the direction of its effort, i.e.y bring it about that it shall
seek in another way than it has hitherto done that which it
invariably seeks. Therefore instructions, improved knowl-
edge, in other words, influence from without, may indeed
teach the will that it erred in the means it employed, and
can therefore bring it about that the end after which it
strives once for all according to its inner nature shall be
pursued on an entirely different path and in an entirely dif-
ferent object from what has hitherto been the case. But it
can never bring about that the will shall will something
actually different from what it has hitherto willed; this
remains unchangeable, for the will is simply this willing
itself, which would have to be abolished. The former, how^
ever, the possible modification of knowledge, and through
knowledge of conduct, extends so far that the will seeks to
attain its unalterable end, for example, Mohammed's para-
dise, at one time in the real world, at another time in a
world of imagination, adapting the means to each, and thus
in the first case applying prudence, might, and fraud, and
in the second case, abstinence, justice, alms, and pilgrimages
to Mecca. But its effort itself has not therefore changed,
still less the will itself. Thus, although its action certainly
shows itself very different at different times, its willing has
yet remained precisely the same. Velle non discitur.

For motives to act, it is necessary not only that they
should be present, but that they should be known; for, ac-
cording to a very good expression of the schoolmen, which
we referred to once before, causa finalis movet non se-*
cundum suurn esse reale; sed secundum esse cognttum. For
example, in order that the relation may appear that exists^
in a given man between egoism and sympathy, it is not suf"
ficient that he should possess wealth and see others in want^

236 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

but he must also know what he can do with his wealth, both
for himself and for others: not only must the suffering of
others be presented to him, but he must know both what suf-
fering and also what pleasure is. Perhaps, on a first occasion,
he did not know all this so well as on a second; and if, on a
similar occasion, he acts differently, this arises simply from
the fact that the circumstances were really different, as re-
gards the part of them that depends on his knowing them,
although they seem to be the same. As ignorance of actually
existing circumstances robs them of their influence, so, on
the other hand, entirely imaginary circumstances may act as
if they were real, not only in the case of a particular de-
ception, but also in general and continuously. For example,
if a man is firmly persuaded that every good action will be
repaid him a hundredfold in a future life, such a conviction
affects him in precisely the same way as a good bill of ex-
change at a very long date, and he can give from mere
egoism, as from another point of view he would take from
egoism. He has not changed himself: velle non discitur. It
is on account of this great influence of knowledge upon
action, while the will remains unchangeable, that the char-
acter develops and its different features appear only little by
little. Therefore it shows itself different at every period of
life, and an impetuous, wild youth may be succeeded by a
staid, sober, manly age. Especially what is bad in the char-
acter will always come out more strongly with time, yet
sometimes it occurs that passions which a man gave way to
in his youth are afterwards voluntarily restrained, simply
because the motives opposed to them have only then come
into knowledge. Hence, also, we are all innocent to begin
with, and this merely means that neither we nor others
know the evil of our own nature; it only appears with the
motives, and only in time do the motives appear in knowl-
edge. Finally we come to know ourselves as quite different

THE WORLD AS WILL 237

from what a priori we supposed ourselves to be, and then
we are often terrified at ourselves.

The influence which knowledge, as the medium of mo'
tives, exerts, not indeed upon the will itself, but upon its
appearance in actions, is also the source of the principal dis-
tinction between the action of men and that of brutes, for
their methods of knowledge are different. The brute has only
knowled^^e of perception, the man, through reason, has also
abstract ideas, conceptions. Now, although man and brute are
with eoual necessity determined by their motives, yet man,
as distinguished from the brute, has a complete chotcey
which has often been regarded as a freedom of the will in
particular actions, although it is nothing but the possibility
of a thoroughly-fought-out battle between several motives,
the strongest of which then determines it with necessity. For
this the motives must have assumed the form of abstract
thoughts, because it is really only by means of these that de-
liberation, i.e.y a weighing of opposite reasons for action, is
possible. In the case of the brute there can only be a choice
between perceptible motives presented to it, so that the
choice is limited to the narrow sphere of its present sensuous
percept 'on. Therefore the necessity of the determination of
the will by the motive, which is like that of the effect by
the cau^e, can be exhibited perceptibly and directly only in the
case of the brutes, because here the spectator has the motives
just as directly before his eyes as their effect; while in the
case of man the motives are almost always abstract ideas,
which are not communicated to the spectator, and even for
the actor himself the necessity of their effect is hidden
behind their conflict. For only in ahstracto can several ideas,
as judgments and chains of conclusions, lie beside each other
in consciousness, and then, free from all determination of
time, work against each other till the stronger overcomes the
rest and determines the will. This is the complete choice or
power of deliberation which man has as distinguished from

238 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

the brutes, and on account of which freedom of the will has
been attributed to him, in the belief that his willing is a
mere result of the operations of his intellect, without a defi-
nite tendency which serves as its basis; while, in truth, the
motives only work on the foundation and under the presup-
position of his definite tendency, which in his case is indi-
vidual i.e.y a character. A fuller exposition of this power of
deliberation, and the difference between human and brute
choice which is introduced by it, will be found in the "Two
Fundamental Problems of Ethics" (ist edition, p. 35, et
seq.; 2d edition, p. 34, et seq.), to which I therefore refer.
For the rest, this power of deliberation which man possesses
is one of those things that makes his existence so much more
miserable than that of the brute. For in general our greatest
Bufferings do not lie in the present as ideas of perception or
as immediate feelings; but in the reason, as abstract concep-
tions, painful thoughts, from which the brute, which lives
only in the present, and therefore in enviable carelessness,
is entirely free.

It seems to have been the dependence, which we have
shown, of the human power of deliberation upon the faculty
of abstract thinking, and thus also of judging and drawing
conclusions also, that led both Descartes and Spinoza to
identify the decisions of the will with the faculty of assert-
ing and denying (the faculty of judgment). From this
Descartes deduced the doctrine that the will which, accord-
ing to him, is indifferently free, is the source of sin, and
also of all theoretical error. And Spinoza, on the other hand,
concluded that the will is necessarily determined by the mo-
tives, as the judgment is by the reasons.^ The latter doctrine
is in a sense true, but it appears as a true conclusion from
false premises.

The distinction we have established between the ways in
which the brutes and man are respectively moved by motives
- 1 Cart. Medit. 4. — Spin. Eth., pt. ii. prop. 48 et 49, caet.

THE WORLD AS WILL 239

exerts a very wide influence upon the nature of botli, and
has most to do with the complete and obvious differences
of their existence. While an idea of perception is in every
case the motive which determines the brute, the man strives
to exclude this kind of motivation altogether, and to deter-
mine himself entirely by abstract ideas. Thus he uses his
prerogative of reason to the greatest possible advantage. In-
dependent of the present, he neither chooses nor avoids the
passing pleasure or pain, but reflects on the consequences of
both. In most cases, setting aside quite insignificant actions,
we are determined by abstract, thought motives, not present
impressions. Therefore all particular privation for the mo*
ment is for us comparatively light, but all renunciation is
terribly hard; for the former only concerns the fleeting
present, but the latter concerns the future, and includes in
itself innumerable privations, of which it is the equivalent.
The causes of our pain, as of our pleasure, lie for the most
part, not in the real present, but merely in abstract thoughts.
It is these which are often unbearable to us — inflict torments
in comparison with which all the sufferings of the animal
world are very small; for even our own physical pain is not
felt at all when they are present. Indeed, in the case of keen
mental suffering, we even inflict physical suffering on our-
selves merely to distract our attention from the former to
the latter. This is why, in great mental anguish, men tear
their hair, beat their breasts, lacerate their faces, or roll on
the floor, for all these are in reality only violent means of
diverting the mind from an unbearable thought. Just be-
cause mental pain, being much greater, makes us insensible
to physical pain, suicide is very easy to the person who is in
despair, or who is consumed by morbid depression, even
though formerly, in comfortable circumstances, he recoiled
at the thought of it. In the same way care and passion (thus
the play of thought) wear out the body oftener and more
than physical hardships. And in accordance with this Epicte'

zj^o THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

tus rightly says: Tagaooei lovg avOQConovg ov la nQayfiaia,
aXXa xa ueqi tcov jiQayjuaTCOV BoyjuaTa (Perturbant homines
non res ipsce, sed de rebus deer eta) ( V.) ; and Seneca: Plura
sunt quae nos terrenty quam quae fremunty et soeftus ofinione
quam re laboramus (Ep. 5). Eulenspiegel also admirably
bantered human nature, for going uphill he laughed, and
going downhill he wept. Indeed, children who have hurt
themselves often cry, not at the pain, but at the thought of
the pain which is awakened when some one condoles with
them. Such great differences in conduct and in life arise
from the diversity between the methods of knowledge of
the brutes and man. Further, the appearance of the distinct
and decided individual character, the principal distinction
between man and the brute, which has scarcely more than
the character of the species, is conditioned by the choice
between several motives, which is only possible through ab-
stract conceptions. For only after a choice has been made
are the resolutions, which vary in different individuals, an
indication of the individual character which is different in
each; while the action of the brute depends only upon the
presence or absence of the impression, supposing this im-
pression to be in general a motive for its species. And,
finally, in the case of man, only the resolve, and not the
mere wish, is a valid indication of his character both for
himself and for others; but the resolve becomes for him-
self, as for others, a certain fact only through the deed. The
wish is merely the necessary consequence of the present im-
pression, whether of the outward stimulus, or the inward
passing mood; and is therefore as immediately necessary and
devoid of consideration as the action of the brutes. There-
fore, like the action of the brutes, it merely expresses the
character of the species, not that of the individual, ue,y it
indicates merely what man in generaly not what the indi-
vidual who experiences the wish, is capable of doing. The
deed alone, — because as human action it always requires a

THE WORLD AS WILL 241

certain deliberation, and because as a rule a rnan has com-
mand of his reason, is considerate, i.e.y decides in accordance
with considered and abstract motives, — is the expression of
the intelligible maxims of his conduct, the result of his in-
most willing, and is related as a letter to the word that
stands for his empirical character, itself merely the temporal
expression of his intelligible character. In a healthy mind,
therefore, only deeds oppress the conscience, not wishes and
thoughts; for it is only our deeds that hold up to us the
mirror of our will. The deed that is entirely unconsidered
and is really committed in blind passion, is to a certain extent
an intermediate thing between the mere wish and the
resolve. Therefore, by true repentance, which, however,
shows itself as action also, it can be obliterated, as a falsely
drawn line, from that picture of our will which our course
of life is. I may insert the remark here, as a very good com-
parison, that the relation between wish and deed has a purely
accidental but accurate analogy with that between the ac-
cumulation and discharge of electricity.

As the result of the whole of this discussion of the free-
dom of the will and what relates to it, we find that
although the will may, in itself and apart from the phenom-
enon, be called free and even omnipotent, yet in its par^
ticular phenomena enlightened by knowledge, as in men and
brutes, it is determined by motives to which the special
character regularly and necessarily responds, and always in
the same way. We see that because of the possession on his
part of abstract or rational knowledge, man, as distinguished
from the brutes, has a choice, which only makes him the
scene of the conflict of his motives, without withdrawing
him from their control. This choice is therefore certainly
the condition of the possibility of the complete expression
of the individual character, but is by no means to be re^
garded as freedom of the particular volition, i.e., indepencf-
ence of the law of causality, the necessity of which extends

H2 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

to man as to every other phenomenon. Thus the difference
between human volition and that of the brutes, which is in-
troduced by reason or knowledge through concepts, extends
to the point we have indicated, and no farther. But, what
is quite a different thing, there may arise a phenomenon of
the human will which is quite impossible in the brute crea-
tion, if man altogether lays aside the knowledge of particu-
lar things as such which is subordinate to the principle of
sufficient reason, and by means of his knowledge of the
Ideas sees through the frincifium indiv'iduatioms . Then an
actual appearance of the real freedom of the will as a thing-
in-itself is possible, by which the phenomenon comes into a
sort of contradiction with itself, as is indicated by the word
"^elf -renunciation; and, finally, the "in-itself" of its nature
suppresses itself. But this, the one, real, and direct expres-
sion of the freedom of the will in itself in the phenomenon,
cannot be distinctly explained here, but will form the sub-
ject of the concluding part of our work.

Now that we have shown clearly in these pages the un-
alterable nature of the empirical character, which is just
the unfolding of the intelligible character that lies outside
time, together with the necessity with which actions follow
upon its contact with motives, we hasten to anticipate an
argument which may very easily be drawn from this in the
interest of bad dispositions. Our character is to be regarded
as the temporal unfolding of an extra-temporal, and there-
fore indivisible and unalterable, act of will, or an intelli-
gible character. This necessarily determines all that is essen-
tial in our conduct in life, t.e.y its ethical content, which
must express itself in accordance with it in its phenomenal
appearance, the empirical character; while only what is un-
essential in this, the outward form of our course of life>
depends upon the forms in which the motives present them-
selves. It might, therefore, be inferred that it is a waste of
trouble to endeavour to improve one's character, and that it

THE WORLD AS WILL 243

IS wiser to submir. to the inevitable, and gratify every in-
clination at once, even if it is bad. But this is precisely the
same thing as the theory of an inevitable fate which is called
agyog Xoyog^ and in more recent times Turkish faith. Its
true refutation, as it is supposed to have been given by
Chrysippus, is explained by Cicero in his book De Fato, ch.
12, 13.

Though everything may be regarded as irrevocably pre-
determined by fate, yet it is so only through the medium of
the chain of causes; therefore in no case can it be deter-
mined that an effect shall appear without its cause. Thus it
is not simply the event that is predetermined, but the event
as the consequence of preceding causes; so that fate does
not decide the consequence alone, but also the means as the
consequence of which it is destined to appear. Accordingly,,
if some means is not present, it is certain that the consC"
quence also will not be present: each is always present in
accordance with the determination of fate, but this is never
known to us till afterwards.

As events always take place according to fate, i.e.y ac^
cording to the infinite concatenation of causes, so our actions
always take place according to our intelligible character*
But just as we do not know the former beforehand, so no
a priori insight is given us into the latter, but we only come
to know ourselves as we come to know other persons a pos-
teriori through experience. If the intelligible character in"
volved that we could only form a good resolution after a
long conflict with a bad disposition, this conflict would have
to come first and be waited for. Reflection on the unalter-
able nature of the character, on the unity of the source
from which all our actions flow, must not mislead us into
claiming the decision of the character in favour of one side
or the other; it is in the resolve that follows that we shall
see what manner of men we are, and mirror ourselves in oxil
actions. This is the exolanation of the satisfaction or the

244 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

anguish of soul with which we look back on the course of
our past life. Both are experienced, not because these past
deeds have still an existence; they are past, they have been,
and now are no more; but their great importance for us lies
in their significance, lies in the fact that these deeds are the
expression of the character, the mirror of the will, in which
we look and recognise our inmost self, the kernel of our
will. Because we experience this not before, but only after,
it behoves us to strive and fight in time, in order that the
picture we produce by our deeds may be such that the con-
templation of it may calm us as much as possible, instead
of harassing us. The significance of this consolation or
anguish of soul will, as we have said, be inquired into
farther on ; but to this place there belongs the inquiry which
follows, and which stands by itself.

Besides the intelligible and the empirical character, we
must mention a third which is difiPerent from them both, the
acquired character y which one only receives in life through
contact with the world, and which is referred to when one
is praised as a man of character or censured as being without
character. Certainly one might suppose that, since the em-
pirical character, as the phenomenon of the intelligible, is
unalterable, and, like every natural phenomenon, is consis-
tent with itself, man would always have to appear like him-
self and consistent, and would therefore have no need to
acquire a character artificially by experience and reflection.
But the case is otherwise, and although a man is always the
same, yet he does not always understand himself, but
often mistakes himself, till he has in some degree
acquired real self-knowledge. The empirical character, as a
mere natural tendency, is in itself irrational; nay, more, its
expressions are disturbed by reason, all the more so the more
intellect and power of thought the man has; for these always
keep before him what becomes man in general as the char-
acter of the species, and what is possible for him both in will

THE WORLD AS WILL 245

and in deed. This makes it the more difficult for him to see
how much his individuality enables him to will and to ac--
complish. He finds in himself the germs of all the various
human pursuits and powers, but the difference of degree in
which they exist in his individuality is not clear to him in
the absence of experience; and if he now applies himself to
the pursuits which alone correspond to his character, he yet
feels, especially at particular moments and in par^iculaf
moods, the inclination to directly opposite pursuits which
cannot be combined with them, but must be entirely sup'
pressed if he desires to follow the former undisturbed. For
as our physical path upon earth is always merely a line, not
an extended surface, so in life, if we desire to grasp and
possess one thing, we must renounce and leave innumerable
others on the right hand and on the left. If we cannot make
up our minds to this, but, like children at the fair, snatch at
everytiiing that attracts us in passing, we are making the
perverse endeavour to change the line of our path into an
extended surface; we run in a zigzag, skip about like a will-
o'-the-wisp, and attain to nothing. Or, to use another com-
parison, as, according to Hobbes' philosophy of law, every
one has an original right to everything but an exclusive right
to nothing, yet can obtain an exclusive right to particular
things by renouncing his right to all the rest, while others,
on their part, do likewise with regard to what he has chosen;
so is it in life, in which some definite pursuit, whether it be
pleasure, honour, wealth, science, art, or virtue, can only be
followed with seriousness and success when all claims that
are foreign to it are given up, when everything else is re-
nounced. Accordingly, the mere will and the mere ability
are not sufficient, but a man must also know what he wills,
and know what he can do; only then will he show char-
acter, and only then can he accomplish something right.
Until he attains to that, notwithstanding the natural con-
sistency of the empirical character, Jhe is without character.

246 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

And although, on the whole, he must remain true to him*
self, and fulfil his course, led by his daemon, yet his path
will not be a straight line, but wavering and uneven. He
will hesitate, deviate, turn back, lay up for himself re-
pentance and pain. And all this is because, in great and
small, he sees before him all that is possible and attainable
for man in general, but does not know what part of all this
is alone suitable for him, can be accomplished by him, and
is alone enjoyable by him. He will, therefore, envy many
men on account of a position and circumstances which are
yet only suitable to their characters and not to his, and in
which he would feel unhappy, if indeed he found them en-
durable at all. For as a fish is only at home in water, a bird
in the air, a mole in the earth, so every man is only at home
in the atmosphere suitable to him. For example, not all men
can breathe the air of court life. From deficiency of proper
insight into all this, many a man will make all kinds of
abortive attemps, will do violence to his character in particu-
lars, and yet, on the whole, will have to yield to it again;
and what he thus painfully attains will give him no
pleasure; what he thus learns will remain dead; even in an
ethical regard, a deed that is too noble for his character, that
has not sprung from pure, direct impulse, but from a con-
cept, a dogma, will lose all merit even in his own eyes,
through subsequent egoistical repentance. Velle non disckur.
We only become conscious of the inflexibility of another
•person's character through experience, and till then we
childishly believe that it is possible, by means of rational
ideas, by prayers and entreaties, by example and noble-
mindedness, ever to persuade any one to leave his own way,
0 change his course of conduct, to depart from his mode
of thinking, or even to extend his capacities: so is it also
with ourselves. We must first learn from experience what
we desire and what we can do. Till then we know it not,
w« are without character, and must often be driven back to

THE WORLD AS WILL 24/

our own way by hard blows from without. But if we have
finally learnt it, then we have attained to what in the world
is called character, the acquired character. This is accord-
ingly nothing but the most perfect knowledge possible of
our own individuality. It is the abstract, and consequently
distinct, knowledge of the unalterable qualities of our own
empirical character, and of the measure and direction of
our mental and physical powers, and thus of the whole
strength and weakness of our own individuality. This places
us in a position to carry out deliberately and methodically
the role which belongs to our own person, and to fill up the
gaps which caprices or weaknesses produce in it, under the
guidance of fixed conceptions.

§ 56. This freedom, this omnipotence, as the express
sion of which the whole visible world exists and progres-
sively develops in accordance with the laws which belong to
the form of knowledge, can now, at the point at which in
its most perfect manifestation it has attained to the com-
pletely adequate knowledge of its own nature, express
itself anew in two ways. Either it wills here, at the summit
of mental endowment and self-consciousness, simply what
it willed before blindly and unconsciously, and if so,
knowledge always remains its motive in the whole as in the
particular case. Or, conversely, this knowledge becomes
for it a quieter^ which appeases and suppresses all willing.
This is that assertion and denial of the will to live which
was stated above in general terms. As, in the reference of
individual conduct, a general, not a particular manifestation
of will, it does not disturb and modify the development of
the character, nor does it find its expression in particular ac-
tions; but, either by an ever more marked appearance of
the whole method of action it has followed hitherto, or con-
versely by the entire suppression of it, it expresses in a living
form the maxims which the will has freely adopted in ac-
cordance with the knowledge it has now attained to. By the

248 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

explanations we have just given of freedom, necessity, and
character, v^^e have somewhat facilitated and prepared the
way for the clearer development of all this, which is the
principal subject of this last book. But we shall have done so
still more when we have turned our attention to life itself,
the willing or not willing of which is the great question,
and have endeavoured to find out generally what the will
itself, which is everywhere the inmost nature of this life,
will really attain by its assertion — in what way and to what
extent this assertion satisfies or can satisfy the will ; in short,
what is generally and mainly to be regarded as its position in
this its own world, which in every relation belongs to it.

First of all, I wish the reader to recall the passage with
which we closed the Second Book, — a passage occasioned by
the question, which met us then, as to the end and aim of
the will. Instead of the answer to this question, it appeared
clearly before us how, in all the grades of its manifestation,
from the lowest to the highest, the will dispenses altogether
with a final goal and aim. It always strives, for striving is
its sole nature, which no attained goal can put an end to.
Therefore it is not susceptible of any final satisfaction, but
can only be restrained by hindrances, while in itself it goes
on for ever. We see this in the simplest of all natural phe-
nomena, gravity, which does not cease to strive and press to-
wards a. mathematical centre to reach which would be the
annihilation both of itself and matter, and would not cease
even if the whole universe were already rolled into one ball.
We see it in the other simple natural phenomena. A solid
tends towards fluidity either by melting or dissolving, for
:)nly so will its chemical forces be free; rigidity is the im-
prisonment in which it is held by cold. The fluid tends to-
wards the gaseous state, into which it passes at once as soon
as all pressure is removed from it. No body is without rela-
tionship, i.e., without tendency or without desire and long-
ing, as Jakob Bohm would say. Electricity transmits its

THE WORLD AS WILL 249

inner self-repulsion to infinity, though the mass of the eartl>
absorbs the effect. Galvanism is certainly, so long as the pil^
is working, an aimless, unceasingly repeated act of repulsion
and attraction. The existence of the plant is just such a
restless, never satisfied striving, a ceaseless tendency through
ever-ascending forms, till the end, the seed, becomes a new
starting-point; and this repeated ad infinitum — nowhere an
end, nowhere a final satisfaction, nowhere a resting-place.
It will also be remembered, from the Second Book, that the
multitude of natural forces and organised forms every-
where strive with each other for the matter in which they
desire to appear, for each of them only possesses what it has
wrested from the others; and thus a constant internecine
war is waged, from which, for the most part, arises the re-
sistance through which that striving, which constitutes the
inner nature of everything, is at all points hindered;
struggles in vain, yet, from its nature, cannot leave off;
toils on laboriously till this phenomenon dies, when others
eagerly seize its place and its matter.

We have long since recognised this striving, which con^
stitutes the kernel and in-itself of everything, as identical
with that which in us, where it manifests itself most dis-
tinctly in the light of the fullest consciousness, is called will.
Its hindrance through an obstacle which places itself be-
tween it and its temporary aim we call suffering, and, on
the other hand, its attainment of the end satisfaction, well-
being, happiness. We may also transfer this terminology to
the phenomena of the unconscious world, for though
weaker in degree, they are identical in nature. Then we
see them involved in constant suffering, and without any
continuing happiness. For all effort springs from defect —
from discontent with one's estate — is thus suffering so long
as it is not satisfied; but no satisfaction is lasting, rather it
is always merely the starting-point of a new effort. The
striving we see everywhere hindered in many ways, every-

250 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER ^

where in conflict, and therefore always under the form of
suffering. Thus, if there is no final end of striving, there is
no measure and end of suffering.

But what we only discover in unconscious Nature by
sharpened observation, and with an effort, presents itself
distinctly to us in the intelligent world in the life of ani-
mals, whose constant suffering is easily proved. But with-
out lingering over these intermediate grades, we shall turn
to the life of man, in which all this appears with the greatest
distinctness, illuminated by the clearest knowledge; for as
the phenomenon of will becomes more complete, the suf-
fering also becomes more and more apparent. In the plant
•here is as yet no sensibility, and therefore no pain. A cer-
tain very small degree of suffering is experienced by the
lowest species of animal life — infusoria and radiata; even
in insects the capacity to feel and suffer is still limited. It
first appears in a high degree with the complete nervous
system of vertebrate animals, and always in a higher de-
gree the more intelligence devolops. Thus, in proportion
as knowledge attains to distinctness, as consciousness ascends,
pain also increases, and therefore reaches its highest degree
in man. And then, again, the more distinctly a man knows,
the more intelligent he is, the more pain he has; the man
who is gifted with genius suffers most of all. In this sense,
that is, with reference to the degree of knowledge in gen-
eral, not mere abstract rational knowledge, I understand
and use here that saying of the Preacher: Qui auget scieft"
tiamy auget et dolorem. That philosophical painter or paint-
ing philosopher, Tischbein, has very beautifully expressed
the accurate relation between the degree of consciousness and
that of suffering by exhibiting it in a visible and clear form
in a drawing. The upper half of his drawing represents
women whose children have been stolen, and who in dif-
ferent groups and attitudes, express in many ways deep ma-
ternal pain, anguish, and despair. The lower half of the

THE WORLD AS WILL 251

drawing represents sheep whose lambs have been taken
away. They are arranged and grouped in precisely the same
way; so that every human head, every human attitude of
the upper half, has below a brute head and attitude cor-
responding to it. Thus we see distinctly how the pain which
is possible in the dull brute consciousness is related to the
violent grief, which only becomes possible through distinct-
ness of knowledge and clearness of consciousness.

We desire to consider in this way, in human existence^
the inner and essential destiny of will. Every one will
easily recognise that same destiny expressed in various de-
grees in. the life of the brutes, only more weakly, and may
also convince himself to his own satisfaction, from the suf-
fering animal world, how essential to all life is suffering,

§ 57. At every grade that is enlightened by knowledge,
the will appears as an individual. The human individual
finds himself as finite in infinite space and time, and conse-
quently as a vanishing quantity compared with them. He
is projected into them, and, on account of their unlimited
nature, he has always a merely relative, never absolute when
and where of his existence; for his place and duration are
finite parts of what is infinite and boundless. His real exist-
ence is only in the present, whose unchecked flight into the
past is a constant transition into death, a constant dying. For
his past life, apart from its possible consequences for the
present, and the testimony regarding the will that is ex-
pressed in it, is now entirely done with, dead, and no longer
anything; and, therefore, it must be, as a matter of reason,
indifferent to him whether the content of that past was pain
or pleasure. But the present is always passing through his
kands into the past ; the future is quite uncertain and always
short. Thus his existence, even when we consider only its
formal side, is a constant hurrying of the present into the
dead past, a constant dying. But if we look at it from the
physical side; it is clear that, as our walking is admittedly

252 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

merely a constantly prevented falling, the life of our body
is only a constantly prevented dying, an ever-postponed
death: finally, in the same way, the activity of our mind is
a constantly deferred ennui. Every breath we draw wards
off the death that is constantly intruding upon us. In this
way we fight with it every moment, and again, at longer
intervals, through every meal we eat, every sleep we take,
every time we warm ourselves, &c. In the end, death must
conquer, for we became subject to him through birth, and
he only plays for a little while with his prey before he swal-
lows it up. We pursue our life, however, with great interest
fnd much solicitude as long as possible, as we blow out a
ijoap-bubble as long and as large as possible, although we
know perfectly well that it will burst.

We saw that the inner being of unconscious nature is a
eonstant striving without end and without rest. And this
appears to us much more distinctly when we consider the
nature of brutes and man. Willing and striving is its whole
being, v/hich may be very well compared to an unquench-
able thirst. But the basis of all willing is need, deficiency,
and thus pain. Consequently, the nature of brutes and man
is subject to pain originally and through its very being. If,
on the other hand, it lacks objects of desire, because it is at
once deprived of them by a too easy satisfaction, a terrible
void and ennui comes over it, i.e.y its being and existence
itself becomes an unbearable burden to it. Thus its life
swings like a pendulum backwards and forwards between
pain and ennui. This has also had to express itself very
oddly in this way; after man had transferred all pain and
torments to hell, there then remained nothing over for
heaven but ennui.

But the constant striving which constitutes the inner na-
ture of every manifestation of will obtains its primary and
most general foundation at the higher grades of objectifica-
Hon, from the fact that here the will manifests itself as a

THE WORLD AS WILL 25^

living body, with the iron command to nourish it ; and what
gives strength to this command is just that this body is noth-
ing but the objectified will to live itself. Man, as the most
complete objectification of that will, is in like measure also
the most necessitous of all beings: he is through and through
concrete willing and needing; he is a concretion of a thou-
sand necessities. With these he stands upon the earth, left to
himself, uncertain about everything except his own need and
misery. Consequently the care for the maintenance of that
existence under exacting demands, which are renewed every
day, occupies, as a rule, the whole of human life. To this
is directly related the second claim, that of the propagation
ojthe species. At the same time he is threatened from all
sides by the most different kinds of dangers, from which it
requires constant watchfulness to escape. With cautious
steps and casting anxious glances round him he pursues his
path, for a thousand accidents and a thousand enemies lie in
wait for him. Thus he went while yet a savage, thus he
goes in civilised life; there is no security for him.

The life of the great majority is only a constant struggle
for this existence itself, with the certainty of losing it at
last. But what enables them to endure this wearisome battle
is not so much the love of life as the fear of death, which
yet stands in the background as inevitable, and may come
upon them at any moment. Life itself is a sea, full of rocka
and whirlpools, which man avoids with the greatest care and
solicitude, although he knows that even if he succeeds in
getting through with all his efforts and skill, he yet by doing
so comes nearer at every step to the greatest, the total, inevit-
able, and irremediable shipwreck, death; nay, even steen
right upon it: this is the final goal of the laborious voyage,
and worse for him than all the rocks from which he haj
escaped.

Now ii is well worth observing that, on the one hand,
the suffering and misery of life may easily increase to such

2 54 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER '

an extent that death itself, in the flight from which the
whole of life consists, becomes desirable, and we hasten
towards it voluntarily; and again, on the other hand, that
as soon as want and suffering permit rest to a man, ennui is
at once so near that he necessarily requires diversion. The
striving after existence is what occupies all living things
and maintains them in motion. But when existence is as-
sured, then they know not what to do with it; thus the
second thing that sets them in motion is the effort to get free
from the burden of existence, to make it cease to be felt,
"to kill time," /.<?., to escape from ennui. Accordingly we
see that almost all men who are secure from want and care,
now that at last they have thrown off all other burdens,
become a burden to themselves, and regard as a gain every
hour they succeed in getting through, and thus every
diminution of the very life which, till then, they have em-
ployed all their powers to maintain as long as possible.
Ennui is by no means an evil to be lightly esteemed; in the
end it depicts on the countenance real despair. It makes beings
who love each other so little as men do, seek each other
eagerly, and thus becomes the source of social intercourse.
Moreover, even from motives of policy, public precautions
are everywhere taken against it, as against other universal
calamities. For this evil may drive men to the greatest ex-
cesses, just as much as its opposite extreme, famine: the
people require fanem et circenses. The strict penitentiary
system of Philadelphia makes use of ennui alone as a means
of punishment, through solitary confinement and idleness,
and it is found so terrible that it has even led prisoners to
commit suicide. As want is the constant scourge of the
people, so ennui is that of the fashionable world. In middle-
class life ennui is represented by the Sunday, and want by
the six week-days.

Thus between desiring and attaining all human life flows
on throughout. The wish is, in its nature, pain; the attain-

THE WORLD AS WILL 255

ment soon begets satiety: the end was only apparent; posses-
sion takes away the charm ; the wish, the need, presents itself
under a new form; when it does not, then follows desolate-
ness, emptiness, ennui, against which the conflict is just as
painful as against want.

That wi^ and satisfaction should follow each other
neither too quickly nor too slowly reduces the suffering,
which both occasion to the smallest amount, and constitutes
the happiest life. For that which we might otherwise call the
most beautiful part of life, its purest joy, if it were only
because it lifts us out of real existence and transforms us
into disinterested spectators of it — ^that is, pure knowledge,
which is foreign to all willing, the pleasure of the beautiful,
the true delight in art — this is granted only to a very few,
because it demands rare talents, and to these few, only as a
passing dream. And then, even these few, on account of
their higher intellectual power, are made susceptible of far
greater suffering than duller minds can ever feel, and are
also placed in lonely isolation by a nature which is obviously
different from that of others; thus here also accounts are
squared. But to the great majority of men purely intellec-
tual pleasures are not accessible. They are almost quite in-
capable of the joys which lie in pure knowledge. They are
entirely given up to willing. If, therefore, anything is to
win their sympathy, to be interesting to them, it must (as
is implied in the meaning of the word) in some way excite
their willy even if it is only through a distant and merely
problematical relation to it; the will must not be left al-
together out of the question, for their existence lies far more
in willing than in knowing, — action and reaction is their
one element. We may find in trifles and everyday occur-
rences the naive expressions of this quality. Thus, for ex-
ample, at any place worth seeing they may visit, they write
their names, in order thus to react, to affect the place since
it does not affect them. Again, when they see a strange, rare

256 Tri£ PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

animal, they cannot easily confine themselves to merely ob«
serving it; they must rouse it, tease it, play v^^ith it, merely
to experience action and reaction; but this need for excite-
ment of the will manifests itself very specially in the dis-
covery and support of card-playing, which is quite pe-
culiarly the expression of the miserable side of humanity.

But whatever nature and fortune may have done, who-
ever a man be and whatever he may possess, the pain which
is essential to life cannot be thrown off. The ceaseless ef-
forts to banish suffering accomplish no more than to make
it change its form. It is essentially deficiency, want, care for
the maintenance of life. If we succeed, which is very dif-
ficult, in removing pain in this form, it immediately
assumes a thousand others, varying according to age and
circumstances, such as lust, passionate love, jealousy, envy,
hatred, anxiety, ambition, covetousness, sickness, &c, &c.
If at last it can find entrance in no other form it comes in
the sad, grey garments of tediousness and ennui, against
which we then strive in various ways. If finally we succeed
in driving this away, we shall hardly do so without letting
pain enter in one of its earlier forms, and the dance begin
again from the beginning; for all human life is tossed
backwards and forwards between pain and ennui. Depress-
ing as this view of life is, I will draw attention, by the way,
to an aspect of it from which consolation may be drawn,
and perhaps even a stoical indifference to one's own present
ills may be attained. For our impatience at these arises for
the most part from the fact that we regard them as brought
about by a chain of causes which might easily be different.
We do not generally grieve over ills which are directly
necessary and quite universal; for example, the necessity of
age and of death, and many daily inconveniences. It is
rather the consideration of the accidental nature of the cir-
cumstances that brought some sorrow just to us, that gives
it its sting. But if we have recognised that pain, as such, is

THE WORLD AS WILL 257

inevitable and essential to life, and that nothing depends
upon chance but its mere fashion, the form under which it
presents itself, that thus our present sorrow fills a place that,
without it, would at once be occupied by another which now
is excluded by it, and that therefore fate can affect us little
in what is essential; such a reflection, if it were to become a
living conviction, might produce a considerable degree of
stoical equanimity, and very much lessen the anxious care
for our own well-being. But, in fact, such a powerful con-
trol of reason over directly felt suffering seldom or never
occurs.

Besides, through this view of the inevitableness of pain,
of the supplanting of one pain by another, and the intro-
duction of a new pain through the passing away of that
which preceded it, one might be led to the paradoxical
but not absurd hypothesis, that in every individual the
measure of the pain essential to him was determined once
for all by his nature, a measure which could neither remain
empty, nor be more than filled, however much the form
of the suffering might change. Thus his suffering and well-
being would by no means be determined from without, but
only through that measure, that natural disposition, which
indeed might experience certain additions and diminutions
from the physical condition at different times, but yet, on
the whole, would remain the same. This hypothesis is sup-
ported not only by the well-known experience that great
suffering makes all lesser ills cease to be felt, and conversely
that freedom from great suffering makes even the most
trifling inconveniences torment us and put us out of
humour; but experience also teaches that if a great misfor-
tune, at the mere thought of which we shuddered, actually
befalls us, as soon as we have overcome the first pain of it,
our disposition remains for the most part unchanged; and,
conversely, that after the attainment of some happiness we
have long desired, we do not feel ourselves on the whole and

258 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

permanently very much better off and more agreeably situated
than before. Only the moment at which these changes occur
affects us with unusual strength, as deep sorrow or exulting
joy, but both soon pass away, for they are based upon illu-
sion. For they do not spring from the immediately present
pleasure or pain, but only from the opening up of a new
future which is anticipated in them. Only by borrowing
from the future could pain or pleasure be heightened so
abnormally, and consequently not enduringly. It would
follow, from the hypothesis advanced, that a large part of
the feelins; of sufferino^ and of well-being: would be sub-
jective and determined a friorty as is the case with knowing;
and we may add the following remarks as evidence in
favour of it. Human cheerfulness or dejection are mani-
festly not determined by external circumstances, such as
wealth and position, for we see at least as many glad faces
among the poor as among the rich. Further, the motives
which induce suicide are so very different, that we can assign
no motive that is so great as to bring it about, even with
great probability, in every character, and few that would be
so small that the like of them had never caused it. Now,
although the degree of our serenity or sadness is not at all
times the same, yet, in consequence of this view, we shall
not attribute it to the change of outward circumstances, but
to that of the inner condition, the physical state. For when
an actual, though only temporary, increase of our serenity,
even to the extent of joyfulness, takes place, it usually
appears without any external occasion. It is true that we
often set our pain arise only from some definite external
relation, and are visibly oppressed and saddened by this only.
Then we believe that if only this were taken away, the
greatest contentment would necessarily ensue. But this is
illusion. The measure of our pain and our happiness is on
the whole, according to our hypothesis, subjectively deter-
mined for each point of time, and the motive for sadness

THE WORLD AS WILL 259

is related to that, just as a blister which draws to a head all
the bad humours otherwise distributed is related to the body.
The pain which is at that period of time essential to our
nature, and therefore cannot be shaken off, would, without
the definite external cause of our suffering, be divided at a
hundred points, and appear in the form of a hundred little
annoyances and cares about things which we now entirely
overlook, because our capacity for pain is already filled by
that chief evil which has concentrated in a point all the suf-
fering otherwise dispersed. This corresponds also to the ob-
servation that if a great and pressing care is lifted from our
breast by its fortunate issue, another immediately takes its
place, the whole material of which was already there be-
fore, yet could not come into consciousness as care because
there was no capacity left for it, and therefore this material
of care remained indistinct and unobserved in a cloudy
form on the farthest horizon of consciousness. But now that
there is room, this prepared material at once comes forward
and occupies the throne of the reigning care of the day
(Tipvravevovoa) . And if it is very much lighter in its mat-
ter than the material of the care which has vanished, it
knows how to blow itself out so as apparently to equal it in
size, and thus, as the chief care of the day, completely fills
the throne.

Excessive joy and very keen suffering always occur in
the same person, for they condition each other reciprocally,
and are also in common conditioned by great activity of the
mind. Both are produced, as we have just seen, not by what
is really present, but by the anticipation of the future. But
since pain is essential to life, and its degree is also deter-
mined by the nature of the subject, sudden changes, because
they are always external, cannot really alter its degree.
Thus an error and delusion always lies at the foundation of
immoderate joy or grief, and consequently both these ex-
cessive strainings of the mind cap be avoided by knowledgr

26o THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

Every immoderate joy (exultatio, insolens Icetitia) always
rests on the delusion that one has found in life what can
never be found there — lasting satisfaction of the harassing
desires and cares, which are constantly breeding new ones.
From every particular delusion of this kind one must inevi-
tably be brought back later, and then when it vanishes must
pay for it with pain as bitter as the joy its entrance caused
was keen. So far, then, it is precisely like a height from
which one can come down only by a fall. Therefore one
ought to avoid them; and every sudden excessive grief is
just a fall from some such height, the vanishing of such a
delusion, and so conditioned by it. Consequently we might
avoid them both if we had sufficient control over ourselves
to survey things always with perfect clearness as a whole and
in their connection, and steadfastly to guard against really
lending them the colours which we wish they had. The
principal effort of the Stoical ethics was to free the mind
from all such delusion and its consequences, and to give it
instead an equanimity that could not be disturbed. It is this
insight that inspires Horace in the well-known ode —

"Equant memento rebus in arduns
Servare mentem, non secns in bonis
Ab insolenti temperatam
Lcetitia."

For the most part, however, we close our minds against
the knowledge, which may be compared to a bitter medi-
cine, that suffering is essential to life, and therefore does
not flow in upon us from without, but that every one car-
ries about with him its perennial source in his own heart.
We rather seek constantly for an external particular cause,
as it were, a pretext for the pain which never leaves us, just
as the free man makes himself an idol, in order to have a
master. For we unweariedly strive from wish to wish; and
although every satisfaction, however much it promised,
when attained fails to satisfy us, but for the most part comes

THE WORLD AS WILL 261

presently tc be an error of which we are ashamed, yet we
do not see that we draw water with the sieve of the
Danaides, but ever hasten to new desires. Thus it either
goes on for ever, or, what is more rare and presupposes a
certain strength of character, till we reach a wish which is
not satisfied and yet cannot be given up. In that case we
have, as it were, found what we sought, something that we
can always blame, instead of our own nature, as the source
of our suffering. And thus, although we are now at vari-
ance with our fate, we are reconciled to our existence, for
the knowledge is again put far from us that suffering is
essential to this existence itself, and true satisfaction impos-
sible. The result of this form of development is a some-
what melancholy disposition, the constant endurance of a
single great pain, and the contempt for all lesser sorrows or
joys that proceeds from it; consequently an already nobler
phenomenon than that constant seizing upon ever-nev/ forms
of illusion, which is much more common.

§ 58. All satisfaction, or what is commonly called happi-
ness, is always really and essentially only negative, and
never positive. It is not an original gratification coming to us
of itself, but must always be the satisfaction of a wish. The
wish, i.e., some want, is the condition which precedes every
pleasure. But with the satisfaction the wish and therefore
the pleasure cease. Thus the satisfaction or the pleasing can
never be more than the deliverance from a pain, from a
want; for such is not only every actual, open sorrow, but
every desire, the importunity of which disturbs our peace,
and, indeed, the deadening ennui also that makes life a
burden to us. It is, however, so hard to attain or achieve any-
thing; difficulties and troubles without end are opposed to
every purpose, and at every step hindrances accumulate.
But when finally everything is overcome and attained, noth-
ing can ever be gained but deliverance from some sorrow or
desire, so that we find ourselves just in the same position as

Mamie Doud Elsenhower
^ Public Library

12 Garden Center

k^^.^,^.^!^*.

262 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

we occupied before this sorrow or desire appeared. All that
is even directly given us is merely the want, i.e., the pain.
The satisfaction and the pleasure we can only know in-
directly through the remembrance of the preceding suffer-
ing and want, which ceases with its appearance. Hence it
arises that we are not properly conscious of the blessings and
advantages we actually possess, nor do we prize them, but
think of them merely as a matter of course, for they gratify
us only negatively by restraining suffering. Only when we
have lost them do we become sensible of their value; for
the want, the privation, the sorrow, is the positive, communi-
cating itself directly to us. Thus also we are pleased by the
remembrance of past need, sickness, want, and such like,
because this is the only means of enjoying the present bless-
ings. And, further, it cannot be denied that in this respect,
and from this standpoint of egoism, which is the form of
the will to live, the sight or the description of the sufferings
of others affords us satisfaction and pleasure in precisely
the way Lucretius beautifully and frankly expresses it in
the beginning of the Second Book —

"Suave, man magno, turbantibus cequora ventis,
E terra magnum alterius spectare laborem:
Non, quia vexari qucmquam est jucunda voluptas;
Sed, quibus ipse malis careas, quia cernere suave est"

That all happiness is only of a negative not a positive na-
ture, that just on this account it cannot be lasting satisfac-
tion and gratification, but merely delivers us from some
pain or want which must be followed either by a new pain,
or by languor, empty longing, and ennui ; this finds support
in art, that true mirror of the world and life, and especially
in poetry. Every epic and dramatic poem can only represent
& struggle, an effort, and fight for happiness, never endur-
ing and complete happiness itself. It conducts its heroes
through a thousand difficulties and dangers to the goal; as
soon as this is reached, it hastens to let the curtain fall; for

M^^ ft

THE WORLD AS WILL 263

now there would remain nothing for it to do but to show
that the glittering goal in which the hero expected to find
happiness had only disappointed him, and that after its at-
tainment he was no better off than before. Because a genu-
ine enduring happiness is not possible, it cannot be the
subject of art. Certainly the aim of the idyll is the descrip-
tion of such a happiness, but one also sees that the idyll as
such cannot continue. The poet always finds that it either
becomes epical in his hands, and in this case it is a very in-
significant epic, made up of trifling sorrows, trifling de-
lights, and trifling efforts — this is the commonest case — or
else it becomes a merely descriptive poem, describing the
beauty of nature, i.e., pure knowing free from will, which
certainly, as a matter of fact, is the only pure happiness,
which is neither preceded by suffering or want, nor neces-
sarily followed by repentance, sorrow, emptiness, or satiety;
but this happiness cannot fill the whole life, but is only pos-
sible at moments. What we see in poetry we find again ii?
music; in the melodies of which we have recognised the
universal expression of the inmost history of the self-
conscious will, the most secret life, longing, suffering, and
delight; the ebb and flow of the human heart. Melody is
always a deviation from the keynote through a thousand
capricious wanderings, even to the most painful discord, and
then a final return to the keynote which expresses the satis-
faction and appeasing of the will, but with which nothing
more can then be done, and the continuance of which any
longer would only be a wearisome and unmeaning mo-
notony corresponding to ennui.

All that we intend to bring out clearly through these in-
vestigations, the impossibility of attaining lasting satisfac-
tion and the negative nature of all happiness, finds its
explanation in what is shown at the conclusion of the Second
Book: that the will, of which human life, like every phe-
nomenon, is the objectification, is a striving without aim 01

i64 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

£nd. We find the stamp of this endlessness imprinted upon
all the parts of its whole manifestation, from its most uni-
versal form, endless time and space, up to the most perfect
of all phenomena, the life and efforts of man. We may
theoretically assume three extremes of human life, and
treat them as elements of actual human life. First, the pow-
erful will, the strong passions (Radscha-Guna). It appears
in great historical characters; it is described in the epic and
the drama. But it can also show itself in the little world,
for the size of the objects is measured here by the degree in
which they influence the will, not according to their ex-
ternal relations. Secondly, pure knowing, the comprehension
of the Ideas, conditioned by the freeing of knowledge from
the service of will: the life of genius (Satwa-Guna).
Thirdly and lastly, the greatest lethargy of the will, and
also of the knowledge attaching to it, empty longing, life-
benumbing languor (Tama-Guna). The life of the indi-
vidual, far from becoming permanently fixed in one of
these extremes, seldom touches any of them, and is for the
most part only a weak and wavering approach to one or
the other side, a needy desiring of trifling objects, constantly
recurring, and so escaping ennui. It is really incredible how
meaningless and void of significance when looked at from
without, how dull and unenlightened by intellect when felt
from within, is the course of the life of the great majority
of men. It is a weary longing and complaining, a dream-
like staggering through the four ages of life to death, ac-
companied by a series of trivial thoughts. Such men are like
clockwork, which is wound up, and goes it knows not why;
and every time a man is begotten and born, the clock of
human life is wound up anew, to repeat the same old piece
it has played innumerable times before, passage after pas-
sage, measure after measure, with insignificant variations.
Every individual, every human being and his course of life,
is but another short dream of the endless spirit of nature, of

THE WORLD AS WILL 261

the persistent will to live; is only another fleeting form,
which it carelessly sketches on its infinite page, space and
time; allows to remain for a time so short that it vanishes
into nothing in comparison with these, and then obliterates
to make new room. And yet, and here lies the serious side of
life, every one of these fleeting forms, these empty fancies,
must be paid for by the whole will to live, in all its activity,
with many and deep sufferings, and finally with a bitter
death, long feared and coming at last. This is why the
sight of a corpse makes us suddenly so serious.

The life of every individual, if we survey it as a whole
and in general, and only lay stress upon its most significant
features, is really always a tragedy, but gone through in de-
tail, it has the character of a comedy. For the deeds and
vexations of the day, the restless irritation of the moment,
the desires and fears of the week, the mishaps of every hour,
are all through chance, which is ever bent upon some jest,
scenes of a comedy. But the never-satisfied wishes, the frus-
trated efforts, the hopes unmercifully crushed by fate, the
unfortunate errors of the whole life, with increasing suf-
fering and death at the end, are always a tragedy. Thus, as
if fate would add derision to the misery of our existence,
our life must contain all the woes of tragedy, and yet w«
cannot even assert the dignity of tragic characters, but in
the broad detail of life must inevitably be the foolish char-
acters of a comedy.

§ 59. If we have so far convinced ourselves a friori, by
the most general consideration, by investigation of the pri-
mary and elemental features of human life, that in its
whole plan it is capable of no true blessedness, but is in its
very nature suffering in various forms, and throughout a
state of misery, we might now awaken this conviction much
more vividly within us if, proceeding more a fosterioriy wc
were to turn to more definite instances, call up pictures to
the fancy, and illustrate by examples the unspeakable misei;f

1.66 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

which experience and history present, wherever one may
look and in whatever direction one may seek. But the chap-
ter would have no end, and would carry us far from the
standpoint of the universal, which is essential to philosophy;
and, moreover, such a description might easily be taken for
a mere declamation on human misery, such as has often
been given, and, as such, might be charged with one-sided-
ness, because it started from particular facts. From such
■1 reproach and suspicion our perfectly cold and philo-
sophical investigation of the inevitable suffering which is
founded in the nature of life is free, for it starts from the
universal and is conducted a priori. But confirmation a pos-
teriori is everywhere easily obtained. Every one who has
awakened from the first dream of youth, who has consid-
ered his own experience and that of others, who has studied
himself in life, in the history of the n^^t and of his own
time, and finally in the works ot the great poets, will, if
his judgment is not paralysed by some indelibly imprinted
prejudice, certainly arrive at the conclusion that this human
world is the kingdom of chance and error, which rule with-
out mercy in great things and in small, and along with which
folly and wickedness also wield the scourge. Hence it arises
that everything better only struggles through with diffi-
culty; what is noble and wise seldom attains to expression,
becomes effective and claims attention, but the absurd and
the perverse in the sphere of thought, the dull and tasteless
•n the sphere of art, the wicked and deceitful in the sphere
of action, really assert a supremacy, only disturbed by short
interruptions. On the other hand, everything that is excel-
lent is always a mere exception, one case in millions, and
therefore, if it presents itself in a lasting work, this, when
it has outlived the enmity of its contemporaries, exists in
isolation, is preserved like a meteoric stone, sprung from an
order of things different from that which prevails here.
But as far as the life of the individual is concerned, every

THE WORLD AS WILL 267^

biography is the history of suffering, for every life is, as 1
rule, a continual series of great and small misfortunes,
which each one conceals as much as possible, because he
knows that others can seldom feel sympathy or compassion,
but almost always satisfaction at the sight of the woes from
which they are themselves for the moment exempt. But
perhaps at the end of life, if a man is sincere and in full
possession of his faculties, he will never wish to have it to
live over again, but rather than this, he will much prefer
absolute annihilation. The essential content of the fa^
mous soliloquy in "Hamlet" is briefly this: Our state is so
wretched that absolute annihilation would be decidedly pref-
erable. If suicide really offered us this, so that the alterna^
tive "to be or not to be," in the full sense of the word, was
placed before us, then it would be unconditionally to be
chosen as "a consummation devoutly to be wished." But
there is something in us which tells us that this is not the
case: suicide is not the end; death is not absolute annihila-
tion. In like manner, what was said by the father of his-
tory ^ has not since him been contradicted, that no man has
ever lived who has not wished more than once that he had
not to live the following day. According to this, the brevity
of life, which is so constantly lamented, may be the best
quality it possesses. If, finally, we should bring clearly to a
man's sight the terrible sufferings and miseries to which his
life is constantly exposed, he would be seized with horror;
and if we were to conduct the confirmed optimist through
the hospitals, infirmaries, and surgical operating-rooms,
through the prisons, torture-chambers, and slave-kennels,
over battle-fields and places of execution; if we were to
open to him all the dark abodes of misery, where it hides
itself from the glance of cold curiosity, and, finally, allow
him to glance into the starving dungeon of Ugoh'no, he,
too, would understand at last the nature of this "best of
^Herodot. vii. 46.

n68 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

possible worlds." For whence did Dante take the materials
for his hell but from this our actual world? And yet he
made a very proper hell of it. And when, on the other
hand, he came to the task of describing heaven and its de-
lights, he had an insurmountable difficulty before him, for
our world affords no materials at all for this. Therefore
there remained nothing for him to do but, instead of de-
scribing the joys of paradise, to repeat to us the instruction
given him there by his ancestor, by Beatrice, and by various
saints. But from this it is sufficiently clear what manner of
world it is. Certainly human life, like all bad ware, is cov-
ered over with a false lustre: what suffers always conceals
itself; on the other hand, whatever pomp or splendour any
one can get, he makes a show of openly, and the more inner
contentment deserts him, the more he desires to exist as
fortunate in the opinion of others: to such an extent does
folly go, and the opinion of others is a chief aim of the
efforts of every one, although the utter nothingness of it is
expressed in the fact that in almost all languages vanity,
vanitaSy originally signifies emptiness and nothingness. But
under all this false show, the miseries of life can so increase
— and this happens every day — that the death which hith-
erto has been feared above all things is eagerly seized upon.
Indeed, if fate will show its whole malice, even this refuge
is denied to the sufferer, and, in the hands of enraged
enemies, he may remain exposed to terrible and slow tor-
tures without remedy. In vain the sufferer then calls on his
gods for help; he remains exposed to his fate without grace.
But this irremediableness is only the mirror of the invin-
cible nature of his will, of which his person is the objectivity.
As little as an external power can change or suppress this
will, so little can a foreign power deliver it from the miser-
ies which proceed from the life which is the phenomenal
appearance of that will. In the principal matter, as in every-
thing else, a man is always thrown back upon himself. In

THE WORLD AS WILL 269

vain does he make to himself gods in order to get from
them by prayers and flattery what can only be accomplished
by his own will-power. The Old Testament made the
world and man the work of a god, but the New Testament
saw that, in order to teach that holiness and salvation from
the sorrows of this world can only come from the world
itself, it was necessary that this god should become man.
It is and remains the will of man upon which everything
depends for him. Fanatics, martyrs, saints of every faith
and name, have voluntarily and gladly endured every tor-
ture, because in them the will to live had suppressed itself;
and then even the slow destruction of its phenomenon was
welcome to them. But I do not wish to anticipate the later
exposition. For the rest, I cannot here avoid the statement
that, to me, ofiimism, when it is not merely the thoughtless
talk of such as harbour nothing but words under their low
foreheads, appears not merely as an absurd, but also as a
really zuicked way of thinking, as a bitter mockery of the
unspeakable suffering of humanity. Let no one think that
Christianity is favourable to optimism ; for, on the contrary,
in the Gospels world and evil are used as almost synonymous.

§ 60. We have now completed the two expositions it was
necessary to insert; the exposition of the freedom of the
will in itself together with the necessity of its phenomenon,
and the exposition of its lot in the world which reflects its
own nature, and upon the knowledge of which it has to
assert or deny itself. Therefore we can now proceed to
bring out more clearly the nature of this assertion and de-
nial itself, which was referred to and explained in a merely
general way above. This we shall do by exhibiting the con-
duct in which alone it finds its expression, and considering
it in its inner significance.

The assertion of the will is the continuous willing itself,
undisturbed by any knowledge, as it fills the life of man in
general. For even the body of a man is the objectivity of th<t

ino THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

will, as it appears at this grade and in this individual. And
thus his willing which develops itself in time is, as it were,
a paraphrase of his body, an elucidation of the significance
of the whole and its parts; it is another way of exhibiting
the same thing-in-itself, of which the body is already the
phenomenon. Therefore, instead of saying assertion of the
will, we may say assertion of the body. The fundamental
theme or subject of all the multifarious acts of will is the
satisfaction of the wants which are inseparable from the
existence of the body in health, they already have their ex-
pression in it, and may be referred to the maintenance of
the individual and the propagation of the species. But in-
directly the most different kinds of motives obtain in this
way power over the will, and bring about the most multi-
farious acts of will. Each of these is only an example, an
instance, of the will which here manifests itself generally.
Of what nature this example may be, what form the mo-
tive may have and impart to it, is not essential ; the important
point here is that something is willed in general and the
degree of intensity with which it is so willed. The will can
only become visible in the motives, as the eye only manifests
its power of seeing in the light. The motive in general
stands before the will in protean forms. It constantly prom-
ises complete satisfaction, the quenching of the thirst of
will. But whenever it is attained it at once appears in an-
other form, and thus influences the will anew, always ac-
cording to the degree of the intensity of this will and its
relation to knowledge which are revealed as empirical char-
acter, in these very examples and instances.

From the first appearance of consciousness, a man finds
himself a willing being, and as a rule, his knowledge re-
mains in constant relation to his will. He first seeks to know
thoroughly the objects of his desire, and then the means of
attaining them. Now he knows what he has to do, and, as a
rule, he does not strive after other knowledge. He moves

THE WORLD AS WILL 271

and acts; his consciousness keeps him always working di-
rectly and actively towards the aims of his will; his thought
is concerned with the choice of motives. Such is life for
almost all men; they wish they know what they wish, and
they strive after it, with sufficient success to keep them from
despair, and sufficient failure to keep them from ennui and
its consequences. From this proceeds a certain serenity, or at
least indifference, which cannot be affected by wealth or
poverty; for the rich and the poor do not enjoy what they
have, for this, as we have shown, acts in a purely negative
way, but what they hope to attain to by their efforts. They
press forward with much earnestness, and indeed with an air
of importance; thus children also pursue their play. It is
always an exception if such a life suffers interruption from
the fact that either the esthetic demand for contemplation
or the ethical demand for renunciation proceed from a
knowledge which is independent of the service of the will,
and directed to the nature of the world in general. Most
men are pursued by want all through life, without ever
being allowed to come to their senses. On the other hand,
the will is often inflamed to a degree that far transcends
the assertion of the body, and then violent emotions and
powerful passions show themselves, in which the individual
not only asserts his own existence, but denies and seeks to
suppress that of others when it stands in his way.

The maintenance of the body through its own powers is
so small a degree of the assertion of will, that if it volun-
tarily remains at this degree, we might assume that, with the
death of this body, the will also which appeared in it would
be extinguished. But even the satisfaction of the sexual pas-
sions goes beyond the assertion of one's own existence, which
fills so short a time, and asserts life for an indefinite time
after the death of the individual. Nature, always true and
consistent, here even nai've, exhibits to us openly the inner
significance of the act of generation. Our own conscious-

272 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

ness, the intensity of the impulse, teaches us that in this act
the most decided assertion of the w'dl to live expresses itself,
purs and without further addition (any denial of other in-
dividuals) ; and now, as the consequence of this act, a new
life appears in time and the causal series, i.e.y in nature; the
begotten appears before the begetter, different as regards the
phenomenon, but in himself, i.e.y according to the Idea,
identical with him. Therefore it is this act through which
every species of living creature binds itself to a whole and
is perpetuated. Generation is, with reference to the begetter,
only the expression, the symptom, of his decided assertion of
the will to live: with reference to the begotten, it is not
the cause of the will which appears in him, for the will in
itself knows neither cause nor effect, but, like all causes,
it is merely the occasional cause of the phenomenal appear-
ance of this will at this time in this place. As thing-in-itself ,
the will of the begetter and that of the begotten are not
different, for only the phenomenon, not the thing-in-itself,
is subordinate to the frincifium individuationis . With that
assertion beyond our own body and extending to the pro-
duction of a new body, suffering and death, as belonging to
the phenomenon of life, have also been asserted anew, and
the possibility of salvation, introduced by the completest
capability of knowledge, has for this time been shown to
be fruitless. Here lies the profound reason of the shame
connected with the process of generation. This view is
mythically expressed in the dogma of Christian theology
that we are all partakers in Adam's first transgression
(which is clearly just the satisfaction of sexual passion),
and through it are guilty of suffering and death. In this
theology goes beyond the consideration of things according
to the principle of sufficient reason, and recognises the Idea
of man, the unity of which is re-established out of its dis-
persion into innumerable individuals through the bond of
generation which holds them all together. Accordingly it re-

THE WORLD AS WILL 273

gards every individual as on one side identical with Adam,
the representative of the assertion of life, and, so far, as
subject to sin (original sin), suffering and death; on the
other side, the knowledge of the Idea of man enables it
to regard every individual as identical with the saviour, the
representative of the denial of the will to live, and, so
far as a partaker of his sacrifice of himself, saved through
his merits, and delivered from the bands of sin and death,
i,e.,the world (Rom. v. l2-2l).

Another mythical exposition of our view of sexual
pleasure as the assertion of the will to live beyond the in-
dividual life, as an attainment to life which is brought
about for the first time bv this means, or as it were a re-
newed assignment of life, is the Greek myth of Proserpine,
who might return from the lower world so long as she had
not tasted its fruit, but who became subject to it altogether
through eating the pomegranate. This meaning appears
very clearly in Goethe's incomparable presentation of this
myth, especially when, as soon as she has tasted the pome-
granate, the invisible chorus of the Fates —

*'Thou art ours!
Fasting shouldest thou return:
And the bite of the apple makes thee ours!"

The sexual impulse also proves itself the decided and
strongest assertion of life by the fact that to man in a state
of nature, as to the brutes, it is the final end, the highest
goal of life. Self-maintenance is his first effort, and as soon
as he has made provision for that, he only strives after the
propagation of the species: as a merely natural being he crtn
attempt no more. Nature also, the inner being of which is
the will to live itself, impels with all her power both man
and the brute towards propagation. Then it has attained its
end with the individual, and is quite indifferent to its death,
for, as the will to live, it cares only for the preservation of
the species, the individual is nothing to it. Because the will

274 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

to live expresses itself most strongly in the sexual impulse^
the inner being of nature, the old poets and philosophers — •
Hesiod and Parmenides — said very significantly that Eroi
is the first, the creator, the principle from w^hich all things
proceed.

The genital organs are, far more than any other ex-
ternal member of the body, subject merely to the will, and
not at all to knowledge. Indeed, the will shows itself here
almost as independent of knowledge, as in those parts
which, acting merely in consequence of stimuli, are subser-
vient to vegetative life and reproduction, in which the will
works blindly as in unconscious Nature. For generation is
only reproduction passing over to a new individual, as it
were reproduction at the second power, as death is only ex-
cretion at the second power. According to all this, the geni-
tals are properly the focus of will, and consequently the
opposite pole of the brain, the representative of knowledge,
i.e.y the other side of the world, the world as idea. The
former are the life-sustaining principle ensuring endless
life to time. In this respect they were worshipped by the
Greeks in the fhallus, and by the Hindus in the lingam^
which are thus the symbol of the assertion of the will,
Knowledge, on the other hand, affords the possibility of the
suppression of willing, of salvation through freedom, of
conquest and annihilation of the world.

We already considered fully at the beginning of this
Fourth Book how the will to live in its assertion must re-
gard its relation to death. We saw that death does not
trouble it, because it exists as something included in life
itself and belonging to it. Its opposite, generation, com'
pletely counterbalances it; and, in spite of the death of the
individual, ensures and guarantees life to the will to live
through all time. To express this the Hindus made the
iingam an attribute of Siva, the god of death. We also fully
explained there how he who with full consciousness occupies

THE WORLD AS WILL 275

the standpoint of the decided assertion of life awaits death
without fear. We shall therefore say nothing more aboit
this here. Without clear consciousness most men occupy
this standpoint and continually assert life. The world exists
as the mirror of this assertion, with innumerable individuals
in infiiiite time and space, in infinite suffering, between
generation and death without end. Yet from no side is a
complaint to be further raised about this; for the will con-
ducts the great tragedy and comedy at its own expense, and
is also its own spectator. The world is just what it is, be-
cause the will, whose manifestation it is, is what it is, be-
cause it so wills. The justification of suffering is, that in
thisj)henomenon also the will asserts itself; and this asser-
tion is justified and balanced by the fact that the will bears
the suffering. Here we get a glimpse of eternal 'justice in
the whole: we shall recognise it later more definitely and
distinctly, and also in the particular. But first we must con-
sider temporal or human justice.^

61. It may be remembered from the Second Book that
in the whole of nature, at all the grades of the objectifica-
tion of will, there was a necessary and constant conflict be-
tween the individuals of all species; and in this way was
expressed the inner contradiction of the will to live with
itself. At the highest grade of the objectification, this phe-
nomenon, like all others, will exhibit itself with greater dis-
tinctness, and will therefore be more easily explained.
With this aim we shall next attempt to trace the source of
egoism as the starting-point of all conflict.

We have called time and space the frinciftum individual
tionisy because only through them and in them is multi-
plicity of the homogeneous possible. They are the essential
forms of natural knowledge, i.e.y knowledge springing
from the will. Therefore the will everywhere manifests
itself in the multiplicity of individuals. But this mvAtiplicitf
1 CI. Ch. xlv. of the Supplement.

276 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

does not concern the will as thing-in-itself, but only its
phenomena. The will itself is present, whole and undi-
vided, in every one of these, and beholds around it the in-
numerably repeated image of its own nature; but this na-
ture itself, the actually real, it finds directly only in its
inner self. Therefore every one desires everything for him-
self, desires to possess, or at least to control, everything, and
whatever opposes it it would like to destroy. To this is
added, in the case of such beings as have knowledge, that
the individual is the supporter of the knowing subject, and
the knowing subject is the supporter of the world, t,e.y that
the whole of Nature outside the knowing subject, and thus
all other individuals, exist only in its idea; it is only con-
scious of them as its idea, thus merely indirectly as some-
thing which is dependent on its own nature and existence;
for with its consciousness the world necessarily disappears
for it, i.e.y its being and non-being become synonymous and
indistinguishable. Every knowing individual is thus in truth,
and finds itself as the whole will to live, or the inner being
of the world itself, and also as the complemental condition
of the world as idea, consequently as a microcosm which is
of equal value with the macrocosm. Nature itself, which is
everywhere and always truthful, gives him this knowledge,
originally and independently of all reflection, with simple
and direct certainty. Now from these two necessary proper-
ties we have given the fact may be explained that every in-
dividual, though vanishing altogether and diminished to
nothing in the boundless world, yet makes itself the centre
of the world, has regard for its own existence and well-
being before everything else; indeed, from the natural
standpoint, is ready to sacrifice everything else for this — is
ready to annihilate the world in order to "naintain its own
self, this drop in the ocean, a little longer^ This disposition
is egoism, which is essential to everything in Nature. Yet
it is just through egoism that the inner conflict of the will

THE WORLD AS WILL 577

with itself attains to such a terrible revelation; for this
egoism has its continuance and being in that opposition of
the microcosm and macrocosm, or in the fact that the ob-
jectification of will has the frincifiutn individuationis for
its form, through which the will manifests itself in the
same way in innumerable individuals, and indeed entire and
completely in both aspects (will and idea) in each. Thus,
while each individual is given to itself directly as the whole
will and the whole subject of ideas, other individuals are
only given it as ideas. Therefore its own being, and the
maintenance of it, is of more importance to it than that of
all others together. Every one looks upon his own death
as upon the end of the world, while he accepts the death
of his acquaintances as a matter of comparative indifference,
if he is not in some way affected by it. In the consciousness
that has reached the highest grade, that of man, egoism, as
well as knowledge, pain, and pleasure, must have reached
its highest grade also, and the conflict of individuals which
is conditioned by it must appear in its most terrible form.
And indeed we see this everywhere before our eyes, in small
things as in great. Now we see its terrible side in the lives
of great tyrants and miscreants, and in world-desolating
wars; now its absurd side, in which it is the theme of
comedy, and very specially appears as self-conceit and
vanity. Rochefoucault understood this better than any one
else, and presented it in the abstract. We see it both in the
history of the world and in our own experience. But il
appears most distinctly of all when any mob of men is set
free from all law and order; then there shows itself at once
i'n the distinctest form the beLlum ommum contra omneSf
which Hobbes has so admirably described in the first chapter
De Give. We see not only how every one tries to seize from
the other what he wants himself, but how often one will
destroy the whole happiness or life of another for the sake
of an insignificant addition to his own happiness. This is

278 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

the highest expression of egoism, the manifestations of
which in this regard are only surpassed by those of actual
wickedness which seeks, quite disinterestedly, the hurt and
suffering of others, without any advantage to itself.

A chief source of that suffering which we found above
to be essential and inevitable to all life is, when it really
appears in a definite form, that Eris, the conflict of all in-
dividuals, the expression of the contradiction, with which
the will to live is affected in its inner self, and which at-
tains a visible form through the frincifium individuationis.
Wild-beast fights are the most cruel means of showing this
directly and vividly. In this original discord lies an un-
quenchable source of suffering, in spite of the precautions
that have been taken against it, and which we shall now con-
sider more closely.

§ 62. It has already been explained that the first and
simplest assertion of the will to live is only the assertion of
one's own body, i.e.y the exhibition of the will through acts
in time, so far as the body, in its form and design, exhibits
the same will in space, and no further. This assertion shows
itself as maintenance of the body, by means of the applica-
tion of its own powers. To it is directly related the satisfac-
tion of the sexual impulse; indeed this belongs to it, because
the genitals belong to the body. Therefore voluntary re-
nunciation of the satisfaction of that impulse based upon no
tnotivey is already a denial of the will to live, is a voluntary
self -suppression of it, upon the entrance of knowledge
which acts as a quieter. Accordingly such denial of one's
own body exhibits itself as a contradiction by the will of its
own phenomenon. For although here also the body objecti-
fies in the genitals the will to perpetuate the species, yet this
is not willed. Just on this account, because it is a denial or
suppression of the will to live, such a renunciation is a hard
and painful self-conquest. But since the will exhibits that
self-assertion of one's own body in innumerable individuals

THE WORLD AS WILL 279'

beside each other, it very easily extends in one individual,
on account of the egoism peculiar to them all, beyond this
asertion to the denial of the same will appearmg in another
individual. The will of the first breaks through the limits
of the assertion of will of another, because the individual
either destroys or injures this other body itself, or else be-
cause it compels the powers of the other body to serve its
own will, instead of the will which manifests itself in that
other body. Thus if, from the will manifesting itself as
another body, it withdraws the powers of this body, and
so increases the power serving its own will beyond that of its
own body, it consequently asserts its own will beyond its own
body by means of the negation of the will appearing in an-
other body. This breaking through the limits of the as-
sertion of will of another has always been distinctly recog-
nised, and its concept denoted by the word wrong. For
both sides recognise the fact instantly, not, indeed, as we do
here in distinct abstraction, but as feeling. He who suf-
fers wrong feels the transgression into the sphere of the
assertion of his own body, through the denial of it by an*
other individual, as a direct and mental pain which is en-
tirely separated and different from the accompanying phy-
sical suffering experienced from the act or the vexation at
the loss. To the doer of wrong, on the other hand, the
knowledge presents itself that he is in himself the same
will which appears in that body also, and which asserts itself
with such vehemence in the one phenomenon that, transgres-
sing the limits of its own body and its powers, it extends
to the denial of this very will in another phenomenon, and
so, regarded as will in itself, it strives against itself by
this vehemence and rends itself. Moreover, this knowledge
presents itself to him instantly, not in abstractor but as an
obscure feeling; and this is called remorse, or, more ac-
curately in this case, the feeling of wrong committed.

Wrong, the conception of which we have thus analysed

'28o THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER '

in ks most general and abstract form, expresses itself in the
concrete most completely, peculiarly, and palpably in can-
nibalism. This is its most distinct and evident type, the ter-
rible picture of the greatest conflict of the will with itself
at the highest grade of its objectification, which is man.
Next to this, it expresses itself most distinctly in murder;
and therefore the committal of murder is followed in-
stantly and with fearful distinctness by remorse, the ab-
stract and dry significance of which we have just given,
which inflicts a wound on our peace of mind that a lifetime
cannot heal. For our horror at the murder committed, as
also our shrinking from the committal of it, corresponds
to that infinite clinging to life with which everything liv-
ing, as phenomenon of the will to live, is penetrated.
Mutilation, or mere injury of another body, indeed every
blow, is to be regarded as in its nature the same as murder,
and differing from it only in degree. Further, wrong shows
itself in the subjugation of another individual, in forcing
him into slavery, and, finally, in the seizure of another's
goods, which, so far as these goods are regarded as the fruit
of his labour, is just the same thing as making him a slave,
and is related to this as mere injury is to murder.

§ 63. We have recognised temporal justice y which has its
fceat in the state, as requiting and punishing, and have seen
that this only becomes justice through a reference to the
future. For without this reference all punishing and requit-
ing would be an outrage without justification, and indeed
merely the addition of another evil to that which has al-
ready occurred, without meaning or significance. But it is
quite otherwise with eternal justice y which was referred to
before, and which rules not the state but the world, is not
dependent upon human institutions, is not subject to chance
and deception, is not uncertain, wavering, and erring, but
infallible, fixed, and sure. The conception of requital im-
plies that of time; therefore eternal justice cannot be re-

THE WORLD AS WILL aSi

quital. Thus it cannot, like temporal justice, admit of respite
and delay, and require time in order to triumph, equalising
the evil deed by the evil consequences only by means of
time. The punishment must here be so bound up with the
offence that both are one.

Now that such an eternal justice really lies in the nature
of the world will soon become completely evident to who-
ever has grasped the whole of the thought which we have
hitherto been developing.

The world, in all the multiplicity of its parts and forms,
is the manifestation, the objectivity, of the one will to live.
Existence itself, and the kind of existence, both as a col-
lective whole and in every part, proceeds from .he will alone.
The will is free, the will is almighty. The will appears in
everything, just as it determines itself in itself and outside
time. The world is only the mirror of this willing; and all
finitude, all suffering, all miseries, which it contains, belong
to the expression of that which the will wills, are as they
are because the will so wills. Accordingly with perfect right
every being supports existence in general, and also the ex-
istence of its species and its peculiar individuality, entirely
as it is and in circumstances as they are, in a world such as
it is, swayed by chance and error, transient, ephemeral, and
constantly suffering; and in all that it experiences, or indeed
can experience, it always gets its due. For the will belongs
to it; and as the will is, so is the world. Only this world
itself can bear the responsibility of its own existence and
nature — no other; for by what means could another have
assumed it? Do we desire to know what men, morally con-
sidered, are worth as a whole and in general, we have only
to consider their fate as a whole and in general. This is
want, wretchedness, affliction, misery, and death. Eternal
justice reigns; if they were not, as a whole, worthless, their
fate, as a whole, would not be so szd. In this sense we may
say, the world itself is the iudgmenx of the world. If we

282 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

could lay all the misery of the world in one scale of the
balance, and all the guilt of the world in the other, the
needle would certainly point to the centre.

Certainly, however, the world does not exhibit itself to
the knowledge of the individual as such, developed for the
service of the will, as it finally reveals itself to the inquirer
as the objectivity of the one and only will to live, which
he himself is. But the sight of the uncultured individual is
clouded, as the Hindus say, by the veil of Maya. He sees
not the thing-in-itself but the phenomenon in time and
space, the frincifium individuationis, and in the other forms
of the principle of sufficient reason. And in this form of his
limited knowledge he sees not the inner nature of things,
v/hich is one, but its phenomena as separated, disunited, in-
numerable, very difiPerent, and indeed opposed. For to him
pleasure appears as one thing ai.J pain as quite another
thing: one man as a tormentor and a murderer, another as
a martyr and a victim; wickedness as one thing and evil as
another. He sees one man live in joy, abundance, and
pleasure, and even at his door another die miserably of want
and cold. Then he asks. Where is the retribution? And he
himself, in the vehement pressure of will which is his origin
and his nature, seizes upon the pleasures and enjoyments of
life, firmly embraces them, and knows not that by this very
act of his will he seizes and hugs all those pains and sor-
rows at the sight of which he shudders. He sees che ills and
he sees the wickedness in the world, but far from knowing
that both of these are but different sides of the manifesta-
tion of the one will to live, he regards them as very dif-
ferent, and indeed quite opposed, and often seeks to escape
by wickedness, i.e., by causing the suffering of another,
from ills, from the suffering of his own individuality, for
he is involved in the frincifium tndividuationis y deluded by
the veil of Maya. Just as a sailor sits in a boat trusting to his
frail barque in a stormy sea, unbounded in every direction.

THE WORLD AS WILL 283

rising and falling with the howling mountainous waves;
so in the midst of a world of sorrows the individual man sits
quietly, supported by and trusting to the frincifiuni indi-
viduattonis y or the way in which the individual knows things
as phenomena. The boundless world, everywhere full of
suffering in the infinite past, in the infinite future, is strange
to him, indeed is to him but a fable; his ephemeral person,
his extensionless present, his momentary satisfaction, this
alone has reality for him; and he does all to maintain this,
so long as his eyes are not opened by a better knowledge.
Till then, there lives only in the inmost depths of his con-
sciousness a very obscure presentiment that all that is after
all not really so strange to him, but has a connection with
him, from which the frincifium individuationis cannot pro-
tect him. From this presentiment arises that ineradicable awe
common to all men (and indeed perhaps even to the most
sensible of the brutes) which suddenly seizes them if by any
chance they become puzzled about the frincifium individua'
tionisy because the principle of sufficient reason in some one
of its forms seems to admit of an exception. For example, if
it seems as if some change took place without a cause, or some
one who is dead appears again, or if in any other way the
past or the future becomes present or the distant becomes
near. The fearful terror at anything of the kind is founded
on the fact that they suddenly become puzzled about the
forms of knowledge of the phenomenon, which alone sep-
arate their own individuality from the rest of the world.
But even this separation lies only in the phenomenon, and
not in the thing-in-itself ; and on this rests eternal justice.
In fact, all temporal happiness stands, and all prudence pro-
ceeds, upon ground that is undermined. They defend the
person from accidents and supply its pleasures; but the per-
son is merely phenomenon, and its difference from other
individuals, and exemption from the sufferings which they
endure, rests merely in the form of the phenomenon, the

284 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

frincifium individuatioms . According to the true nature of
things, every one has all the suffering of the world as his
own, and indeed has to regard all merely possible suffering
as for him actual, so long as he is the fixed will to live,
\.e.y asserts life with all his power. For the knowledge that
sees through the frincifium individuationis y a, happy life in
time, the gift of chance or won by prudence, amid the sor-
rows of innumerable others, is only the dream of a beggar
in which he is a king, but from which he must awake and
learn from experience that only a fleeting illusion had sep-
arated him from the suffering of his life.

Eternal justice withdraws itself from the vision that is
involved in the knowledge which follows the principle of
sufficient reason in the frincifium individuationis; such
vision misses it altogether unless it vindicates it in some way
by fictions. It sees the bad, after misdeeds and cruelties of
every kind, live in happiness and leave the world unpun-
ished. It sees the oppressed drag out a life full of suf-
fering to the end without an avenger, a requiter appearing.
But that man only will grasp and comprehend eternal jus-
tice who raises himself above the knowledge that proceeds
under the guidance of the principle of sufficient reason,
bound to the particular thing, and recognises the Ideas, sees
through the frincifium individuationis , and becomes con-
scious that the forms of the phenomenon do not apply to the
thing-in-itself. Moreover, he alone, by virtue of the same
knowledge, can understand the true nature of virtue, as it
will soon disclose itself to us in connection with the present
inquiry, although for the practice of virtue this knowledge
in the abstract is by no means demanded. Thus it becomes
clear to whoever has attained to the knowledge referred to,
that because the will is the in-itself of all phenomena, the
misery which is awarded to others and that which he ex-
periences himself, the bad and the evil, always concerns
only that one inner being which is everywhere the same^

THE WORLD AS WILL 285'

although the phenomena in which the one and the othef
exhibits itself exists as quite different individuals, and are
widely separated by time and space. He sees that the differ-
ence between him who inflicts the suffering and him who
must bear it is only the phenomenon, and does not concern
the thing-in-itself , for this is the will living in both, which
here, deceived by the knowledge which is bound to its
service, does not recognise itself, and seeking an increased
happiness in one of its phenomena, produces great suffering
in anothevy and thus, in the pressure of excitement, buries it?
teeth in its own flesh, not knowing that it always injures
only itself, revealing in this form, through the medium of
individuality, the conflict with itself which it bears in its
inner nature. The inflicter of suffering and the sufferer are
one. The former errs in that he believes he is not a par-^
taker in the suffering; the latter, in that he believes he is
not a partaker in the guilt. If the eyes of both were opened,
the inflicter of suffering would see that he lives in all that
suffers pain in the wide world, and which, if endowed with
reason, in vain asks why it was called into existence for such
great suffering, its desert of which it does not understand.
And the sufferer would see that all the wickedness which
is or ever was committed in the world proceeds from that
will which constitutes his own nature also, appears also in
htniy and that through this phenomenon and its assertion
he has taken upon himself all the sufferings which proceed
from such a will and bears them as his due, so long as he is
this will. From this knowledge speaks the profound poet
Calderon in "Life a Dream" —

"For the greatest crime of man
Is that he ever was bom."

Why should it not be a crime, since, according to an
eternal law, death follows upon it? Calderon has merely
expressed in these lines the Christian dogma of original sin.

286 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

The living knowledge of eternal justice, of the balance
that inseparably binds together the malum cul'pce with the
malum fcencBy demands the complete transcending of indi-
viduality and the principle of its possibility. Therefore it
will always remain unattainable to the majority of men, as
will also be the case with the pure and distinct knowledge
of the nature of all virtue, which is akin to it, and which
we are about to explain. Accordingly the wise ancestors of
the Hindu people have directly expressed it in the Vedas,
which are only allowed to the three regenerate castes, or in
their esoteric teaching, so far at any rate as conception and
language comprehend it, and their method of exposition,
which always remains pictorial and even rhapsodical, ad-
mits; but in the religion of the people, or exoteric teaching,
they only communicate it by means of myths. The direct
exposition we find in the Vedas, the fruit of the highest
human knowledge and wisdom, the kernel of which has at
last reached us in the Upanishads as the greatest gift of this
century. It is expressed in various ways, but especially by
making all the beings in the world, living and lifeless, pass
successively before the view of the student, and pronounc-
ing over every one of them that word which has become
a formula, and as such has been called the Mahavakya:
Tatoumes, — more correctly. Tat twam asi, — which means,
"This thou art."^ But for the people, that great truth, so
far as in their limited condition they could comprehend it,
was translated into the form of knowlege which follows
the principle of sufficient reason. This form of knowledge
is indeed, from its nature, quite incapable of apprehending
that truth pure and in itself, and even stands in contradic-
tion to it, yet in the form of a myth it received a substitute
for it which was sufficient as a guide for conduct. For the
myth enables the method of knowledge, in accordance with
thi^ principle of sufficient reason, to comprehend by iigura-
1 Oupnek'hat, vol. i. p. 60 ti seq.

THE WORLD AS WILL 287

tive representation the ethical significance of conduct, which
itself is ever foreign to it. This is the aim of all systems
of religion, for as a whole they are the mythical clothing of
the truth which is unattainable to the uncultured human in-
tellect. In this sense this myth might, in Kant's language, be
called a postulate of the practical reason; but regarded as
such, it has the great advantage that it contains absolutely
no elements but such as lie before our eyes in the course of
actual experience, and can therefore support all its concep-
tions with perceptions. What is here referred to is the myth
of the transmigration of souls. It teaches that all sufferings
which in life one inflicts upon other beings must be ex-
piated in a subsequent life in this world, through precisely
the same sufferings; and this extends so far, that he who
only kills a brute must, some time in endless time, be born
as the same kind of brute and suffer the same death. It
teaches that wicked conduct involves a future life in this
world in suffering and despised creatures, and, accordingly,
that one will then be born again in lower castes, or as a
woman, or as a brute, as Pariah or Tschandala, as a leper,
or as a crocodile, and so forth. All the pains which the
myth threatens it supports with perceptions from actual life,
through suffering creatures which do not know how they
have merited their misery, and it does not require to call
in the assistance of any other hell. As a reward, on the other
hand, it promises rebirth, in better, nobler forms, as
Brahmans, wise men or saints. The highest reward, which
awaits the noblest deeds and the completes! resignation,
which is also given to the woman who in seven successive
lives has voluntarily died on the funeral pile of her bus-'
band, and not less to the man whose pure mouth has never
uttered a single lie, — this reward the myth can only express
negatively in the language of this world by the promise,
which is so often repeated, that they shall never be born
again, Non adsuTnes iterum existentiam affarentem; or, as

'288 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

the Buddhists, who recognise neither Vedas nor castes, ex-
press it, "Thou shalt attain to Nirvana," i.e.y to a state in
which four things no longer exist — birth, age, sickness, and
death.

Never has a myth entered, and never will one enter, more
closely into the philosophical truth which is attainable to so
few than this primitive doctrine of the noblest and most
ancient nation. Broken up as this nation now is into many
parts, this myth yet reigns as the universal belief of the
people, and has the most decided influence upon life to-day,
as four thousand years ago. Therefore Pythagoras and Plato
have seized with admiration on that ne flus ultra of mythi-
cal representation, received it from India or Egypt,
honoured it, made use of it, and, we know not how far,
even believed it. We, on the contrary, now send the Brah-
mans English clergymen and evangelical linen-weavers to
set them right out of sympathy, and to show them that they
are created out of nothing, and ought thankfully to rejoice
,in the fact. But it is just the same as if we fired a bullet
iagainst a cliff. In India our religions will never take
root. The ancient wisdom of the human race will not be
displaced by what happened in Galilee. On the contrary,
Indian philosophy streams back to Europe, and will produce
a fundamental change in our knowledge and thought.

§ 65. In all the preceding investigations of human action,
we have been leading up to the final investigation, and have
to a considerable extent lightened the task of raising to ab-
stract and philosophical clearness, and exhibiting as a branch
of our central thought that special ethical significance of
action which in life is with perfect understanding denoted
by the words good and bad.

First, however, I wish to trace back to their real meaning
those conceptions of good and bad which have been treated by
the philosophical writers of the day, very extraordinarily, as
Simple conceptions, and thus incapable of analysis; so that

I

-THE WORLD AS WILL 289

the reader may not remain involved in the senseless de-
lusion that they contain more than is actually the case, and
express in and for themselves all that is here necessary.
I am in a position to do this because in ethics I am no more
disposed to take refuge behind the w^ord good than formerly
behind the v^^ords beautiful and trucy in order that by the
adding a "ness," which at the present day is supposed to have
a special osfivoTYjg^ and therefore to be of assistance in vari-
ous cases, and by assuming an air of solemnity, I might in-
duce the belief that by uttering three such words I had done
more than denote three very wide and abstract, and conse-
quently empty conceptions, of very different origin and sig-
nificance. Who is there, indeed, who has made himself ac-
quainted with the books of our own day to whom these three
words, admirable as are the things to which they originally
refer, have not become an aversion after he has seen for
the thousandth time how those who are least capable of
thinking believe that they have only to utter these three
words with open mouth and the air of an intelligent sheep,
in order to have spoken the greatest wisdom?

The explanation of the concept true has already been
given in the essay on the principle of sufficient reason, chap.
v § 2() et seq. The content of the concept beautiful found
for the first time its proper explanation througn the whole
of the Third Book of the present work. We now wish to
discover the significance of the concept goody which can be
done with very little trouble. This concept is essentially
relative, and signifies the conformity of an object to any
definite effort of the will. Accordingly everything that cor-
responds to the will in any of its expressions and fulfils its
end is thought through the concept goody however different
such things may be in other respects. Thus we speak of good
eating, good roads, good weather, good weapons, good
omens, and so on; in short, we call everything good that
is just as we wish it to be^ and therefore that may be gocxf

290 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

m the eyes of one man which is just the reverse in those
of another. The conception of the good divides itself into
fwo sub-species — that of the direct and present satisfaction
of any volition, and that of its indirect satisfaction which
[ias reference to the future, i.e., the agreeable, and the useful.
The conception of the opposite, so long as we are speaking
of unconscious existence, is expressed by the word bad, more
rarely and abstractly by the word evil, which thus denotes
everything that does not correspond to any effort of the will.
Like all other things that can come into relation to the will.
men who are favourable to the ends which happen to be de-
sired vvho further and befriend them, are called good in
the same sense, and always with that relative limitation,
which shows itself, for example, in the expression, "I find
this good, but you don't." Those, however, who are natur-
ally disposed not to hinder the endeavours of others, but
rather to assist them, and who are thus consistently helpful,
benevolent, friendly, and charitable, are called good men,
on account of this relation of their conduct to the will of
others in general. In the case of conscious beings (brutes
nnd men) the contrary conception is denoted in German,
and, wiihin the last hundred years or so, in French also,
by a different word from that which is used in speaking of
unconscious existence; in German, bose; in French,
tnechant; while in almost all other languages this distinc-
tion does not exist; and KaKog^ malus, cattivo, bad, are used
of men, as of lifeless things, which are opposed to the ends
of a definite individual will. Thus, having started entirely
from the passive element to the good, the inquiry could only
proceed later to the active element, and investigate the con-
duct of the man who is called good, no longer with refer-
ence to others, but to himself; specially setting itself the
*ask of explaining both the purely objective respect which
■Mch conduct produces in others, and the peculiar content-
naent with himself which it clearly produces in the man

THE WORLD AS WILL 291

himself, since he purchases it with sacrifices of another
kind; and also, on the other hand, the inner pain which
accompanies the bad disposition, whatever outward advan-
tages it brings to him who entertains it. It was from this
source that the ethical systems, both the philosophical and
those which are supported by systems of religion, took their
rise. Both seek constantly in some way or other to connect
happiness with virtue, the former either by means of the
principle of contradiction or that of sufficient reason, and
thus to make happiness either identical with or the conse-
quence of virtue, always sophistically; the latter, by assert-
ing the existence of other worlds than that which alone can
be known to experience. In our system, on the contrary,
virtue will show itself, not as a striving after happiness, that
is, well-being and life, but as an effort in quite an opposite
direction.

It follows from what has been said above, that the good
is, according to its concept, tcov Jipcog if; thus every good
is essentially relative, for its being consists in its relation to
a desiring will. Absolute good is, therefore, a contradiction
in terms; highest good, summum bonurriy really signifies the
same thing — a final satisfaction of the will, after which no
new desire could arise, — a last motive, the attainment of
which would afford enduring satisfaction of the will. But,
according to the investigations which have already been con-
ducted in this Fourth Book, such a consummation is not
even thinkable. The will can just as little cease from will-
ing altogether on account of some particular satisfaction,
as time can end or begin; for it there is no such thing as a
permanent fulfilment which shall completely and for ever
satisfy its craving. It is the vessel of the Danaides; for it
there \b no highest good, no absolute good, but always a
merely temporary good. If, however, we wish to give an
honorary position, as it were emeritus, to an old expression,
which from custom we do not like to discard altogether, vie^

292 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

may, metaphorically and figuratively, call the complete self-
eflpacement and denial of the will, the true absence of will,
which alone for ever stills and silences its struggle, alone
gives that contentment which can never again be disturbed,
alone redeems the world, and which we shall now soon con-
sider at the close of our whole investigation — the absolute
good, the summum. honum — and regard it as the only radi-
cal cure of the disease of which all other means are only
palliations or anodynes. In this sense the Greek ifiAog and
also finis honorum correspond to the thing still better. So
much for the words good and bad; now for the thing itself.
If a' man is always disposed to do wrong whenever the
opportunity presents itself, and there is no external power
to restrain him, we call him bad. According to our doctrine
of wrong, this means that such a man does not merely assert
the will to live as it appears in his own body, but in this as-
sertion goes so far that he denies the will which appears in
other individuals. This is shown by the fact that he desires
their powers for the service of his own will, and seeks to
destroy their existence when they stand in the way of its
efforts. The ultimate source of this is a high degree of ego-
ism, the nature of which has been already explained. Two
things are here apparent. In the first place, that in such a
man an excessively vehement will to live expresses itself,
extending far beyond the assertion of his own body; and,
in the second place, that his knowledge, entirely given up to
the principle of suflficient reason and involved in the 'pr'in-
ciflum indtviduationisy cannot get beyond the difiFerence
which this latter principle establishes between his own person
and every one else. Therefore he seeks his own well-being
alone, completely indififerent to that of all others, whose ex-
istence is to him altogether foreign and divided from his
own by a wide gulf, and who are indeed regarded by him
AS mere masks with no reality behind them. And these two
^qualities are the constituent elements of the bad character.

THE WORLD AS WILL 293

This great intensity of will is in itself and directly a
constant source of suffering. In the first place, because all
volition as such arises from want; that is, suffering. (There-
fore, as will ^t remembered, from the Third Book, the mo-
mentary cessation of all volition, which takes place when-
ever we give ourselves up to aesthetic contemplation, as pure
will-less subject of knowledge, the correlative of the Idea,
is one of the principal elements in our pleasure in the beauti-
ful.) Secondly, because, through the causal connection of
things, most of our desires must remain unfulfilled, and the
will is oftener crossed than satisfied, and therefore much
intense volition carries with it much intense suffering. For
all suffering is simply unfulfilled and crossed volition; and
even the pain of the body when it is injured or destroyed is
as such only possible through the fact that the body is noth-
ing but the will itself become object. Now on this account,
because much intense suffering is inseparable from much
intense volition, very bad men bear the stamp of inward
suffering in the very expression of the countenance; even
when they have attained every external happiness, they al-
ways look unhappy so long as they are not transported by
some momentary ecstasy and are not dissembling. From this
inward torment, which is absolutely and directly essential to
them, there finally proceeds that delight in the suffering of
others which does not spring from mere egoism, but is dis-
interested, and which constitutes wickedness proper, rising
to the pitch of cruelty. For this the suffering of others is not
a means for the attainment of the ends of its own will, but
an end in itself. The more definite explanation of this
phenomenon is as follows: — Since man is a manifestation
of will illuminated by the clearest knowledge, he is always
contrasting the actual and felt satisfaction of his will with
the merely possible satisfaction of it which knowledge pre-
sents to him. Heace arises envy: every nrivation is infinitely
increased by the enjoyment of others, and relieved by tb«

294 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

knowledge that others also suffer the same privation. Those
ills which are common to all and inseparable from human
life trouble us little, just as those which belong to the
climate, to the whole country. The recollection of greater
sufferings than our own stills our pain; the sight of the suf-
ferings of others soothes our own. If, now, a man is filled
with an exceptionally intense pressure of will, — if with
burning eagerness he seeks to accumulate everything to slake
the thirst of his egoism, and thus experiences, as he inevit-
ably must, that all satisfaction is merely apparent, that the
attained end never fulfils the promise of the desired object,
the final appeasing of the fierce pressure of will, but that
when fulfilled the wish only changes its form, and now
torments him in a new one; and indeed that if at last all
wishes are exhausted, the pressure of will itself remains
without any conscious motive, and makes itself known to
him with fearful pain as a feeling of terrible desolation
and emptiness; if from all this, which in the case of the
ordinary degrees of volition is only felt in a small measure,
and only produces the ordinary degree of melancholy.^ in the
case of him who is a manifestation of will reaching the
point of extraordinary wickedness, there necessarily springs
an excessive inward misery, an eternal unrest, an incurable
pain; he seeks indirectly the alleviation which directly is
denied him, — seeks to mitigate his own suffering by the
sight of the suffering of others, which at the same time
he recognises as an expression of his power. The suffering
of others now becomes for him an end in itself, and is a
spectacle in which he delights; and thus arises the phenom-
enon of pure cruelty, blood-thirstiness, which history ex-
hibits so often in the Neros and Domitians, in the African
Deis, in Robespierre, and the like.

The desire of revenge is closely related to wickedness.
It recompenses evil with evil, not with reference to the fu-
ture, which is the character of punishment, but merely on

THE WORLD AS WILL 295'

account of what has happened, what is past, as such, thui
disinterestedly, not as a means, but as an end, in order to
revel in the torment which the avenger himself has inflicted
on the offender. What distinguishes revenge from pure
wickedness, and to some extent excuses it, is an appearance of
justice. For if the same act, which is now revenge, were
to be done legally, that is, according to a previously deter-
mined and known rule, and in a society which had sanc«
tioned this rule, it would be punishment, and thus justice.

Besides the suffering which has been described, and which
is inseparable from wickedness, because it springs from the
same root, excessive vehemence of will, another specific pain
quite different from this is connected with wickedness*
which is felt in the case of every bad action, whether it
be merely injustice proceeding from egoism or pure wicked--
ness, and according to the length of its duration is called
the sting of conscience or remorse. Now, whoever remem"
bers and has present in his mind the content of the preceding
portion of this Fourth Book, and especially the truth ex-
plained at the beginning of it, that life itself is always as
sured to the will to live, as its mere copy or mirror, and also
the exposition of eternal justice, will find that the sting of
conscience can have no other meaning than the following,
ue.y its content, abstractly expressed, is what follows, ir-
which two parts are distinguished, which again, however^,
entirely coincide, and must be thought as completely united-

However closely the veil of Maya may envelop the mind
of the bad man, i,e.y however firmly he may be involved ir>
the frincifium individuationis y according to which he re-
gards his person as absolutely different and separated by a
wide gulf from all others, a knowledge to which he clings
with all his might, as it alone suits and supports his egoism,
so that knowledge is almost always corrupted by will, yet
there arises in the inmost depths of his consciousness the
secret presentiment that such an order of things is only

296 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

phenomenal, and that their real constitution is quite differ-
ent. He has a dim foreboding that, however much time and
space may separate him from other individuals and the in-
numerable miseries which they suffer, and even suffer
through him, and may represent them as quite foreign to
him, yet in themselves, and apart from the idea and its
forms, it is the one will to live appearing in them all, which
here failing to recognise itself, turns its weapons against
itself, and, by seeking increased happiness in one of its
phenomena, imposes the greatest suffering upon another.
He dimly sees that he, the bad man, is himself this whole
will ; that consequently he is not only the inflicter of pain
but also the endurer of it, from whose suffering he is only
separated and exempted by an illusive dream, the form of
which is space and time, which, however, vanishes away;
that he must in reality pay for the pleasure with the pain,
and that all suffering which he only knows as possible
really concerns him as the will to live, inasmuch as the
possible and actual, the near and the distant in time and
space, are only different for the knowledge of the indi-
vidual, only by means of the frincifium individuationis y not
in themselves. This is the truth which mythically, i.e.,
adapted to the principle of sufficient reason, and so trans-
lated into the form of the phenomenal, is expressed in the
transmigration of souls. Yet it has its purest expression free
from all foreign admixture, in that obscurely felt yet in-
consolable misery called remorse. But this springs also from
a second immediate knowledge, which is closely bound to
the first — the knowledge of the strength with which the
will to live asserts itself in the wicked individual, which
extends far beyond his own individual phenomenon, to the
absolute denial of the same will appearing in other indi-
viduals. Consequently the inward horror of the wicked man
at his own deed, which he himself tries to conceal, contains,
besides that presentment of the nothingness, the mere illu-

THE WORLD AS WILL 29^

Siveness of the frincif'tum individuationisy and of the dis-
tinction established by it between him and others; also
the knowledge of the vehemence of his own will, the in-
tensity with which he has seized upon life and attached him-
self closely to it, even that life whose terrible side he sees
before him in the misery of those who are oppressed by
him, and with which he is yet so firmly united, that just on
this account the greatest atrocity proceeds from him him"
self, as a means for the fuller assertion of his own will.
He recognises himself as the concentrated manifestation of
the will to live, feels to what degree he is given up to life,
and with it also to innumerable sufferings which are es-
sential to it, for it has infinite time and infinite space to
abolish the distinction between the possible and the actual,
and to change all the sufferings which as yet are merely
known to him into sufferings he has exferienced. The mil-
lions of years of constant rebirth certainly exist, like the
whole past and future, only in conception; occupied time,
the form of the phenomenon of the will, is only the present,
and for the individual time is ever new: it seems to him
always as if he had newly come into being. For life is in-
separable from the will to live, and the only form of life is
the present. Death (the repetition of the comparison must
be excused) is like the setting of the sun, which is onl)
apparently swallowed up by the night, but in reality, itself
the source of all light, burns without intermission, brings
new days to new worlds, is always rising and always settings
Beginning and end only concern the individual through
time, the form of the phenomenon for the idea. Outside
time lies only the will, Kant's thing-in-itself, and its ade-
quate objectification, the Idea of Plato. Therefore suicide
affords no escape; what every one in his inmost conscious-
ness wills y that must he be; and what every one isy that he
wills. Thus, besides the merely felt knowledge of the illu-
siveness and nothingness of the forms of the idea which

29S THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

separate individuals, it is the self-knowledge of one*s own
will and its degree that gives the sting to conscience. The
course of life draws the image of the empirical character,
whose original is the intelligible character, and horrifies the
wicked man by this image. He is horrified all the same
whether the image is depicted in large characters, so that
the world shares his horror, or in such small ones that ho
alone sees it, for it only concerns him directly. The past
would be a matter of indifference, and could not pain the
conscience if the character did not feel itself free from
all time and unalterable by it, so long as it does not deny
itself. Therefore things which are long past still weigh on
the conscience. The prayer, "Lead me not into tempta-
tion," means, "Let me not see what manner of person I
am." In the might with which the bad man asserts life, and
which exhibits itself to him in the sufferings which he in-
flicts on others, he measures how far he is from the surren-
der and denial of that will, the only possibl'^' deliverance
from the world and its miseries. He sees how far he belongs
to it, and how firmly he is bound to it; the knozun suffering
of others has no power to move him; he is given up to life
and felt suffering. It remains hidden whether this will ever
break and overcome the vehemence of his will.

This exposition of the significance and inner nature of
the bady which as mere feeling, i.e.y not as distinct, abstract
knowledge, is the content of remorsey will gain distinctness
and completeness by the similar consideration of the good
as a quality of human will, and finally of absolute resigna-
tion and holiness, which proceeds from it when it has at-
tained its highest grade. For opposites always throw light
upon each other, and the day at once reveals both itself and
the night, as Spinoza admirably remarks.

§ 66. A theory of morals without proof, that is, mere
moralising, can effect nothing, because it does not act as a
motive. A theory of morals which does act as a motive can

THE WORLD AS WILL 299

do so only by working on self-love. But what springs from
this source has no moral worth. It follows from this that
no genuine virtue can be produced through moral theory or
abstract knowledge in general, but that such virtue must
spring from that intuitive knowledge which recognises in
the individuality of others the same nature as in our own.
For virtue certainly proceeds from knowledge, but not
from the abstract knowledge that can be communicated
through words. If it were so, virtue could be taught, and
by here expressing in abstract language its nature and the
knowledge which lies at its foundation, we should make
every one who comprehends this even ethically better. But
this is by no means the case. On the contrary, ethical dis-
courses and preaching will just as little produce a virtuous
man as all the systems of aesthetics from Aristotle down-
wards have succeeded in producing a poet. For the real inner
nature of virtue the concept is unfruitful, just as it is in art,
and it is only in a completely subordinate position that it
can be of use as a tool in the elaboration and preserving of
what has been ascertained and inferred by other means.
Velle non discitur. Abstract dogmas are, in fact, without in-
fluence upon virtue, /.<?., upon the goodness of the disposi-
tion. False dogmas do not disturb it; true ones will scarcely
assist it. It would, in fact, be a bad look-out if the cardinal
fact in the life of man, his ethical worth, that worth which
counts for eternity, were dependent upon anything the at-
tainment of which is so much a matter of chance as is the
case with dogmas, religious doctrines, and philosophical
theories. For morality dogmas have this value only: The
man who has become virtuous from knowledge of another
kind, which is presently to be considered, possesses in them
a scheme or formula according to which he accounts to his
own reason, for the most part fictitiously, for his non-ego-
istical action, the nature of which it, /.<?., he himself, does

300 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

not comprehend, and with which account he has accus-
tomed it to be content.

Upon conduct, outward action, dogmas may certainly
exercise a powerful influence, as also custom and example
(the last because the ordinary man does not trust his judg-
ment, of the weakness of which he is conscious, but only
follows his own or some one else's experience), but tht
disposition is not altered in this way/ All abstract knowl-
edge gives only motives; but, as was shown above, motives
can only alter the direction of the will, not the will itself.
All communicable knowledge, however, can only affect the
will as a motive. Thus when dogmas lead it, what the man
really and in general wills remains still the same. He has
only received different thoughts as to the ways in which it is
to be attained, and imaginary motives guide him just like
real ones. Therefore, for example, it is all one, as regards
his ethical worth, whether he gives large gifts to the poor,
firmly persuaded that he will receive everything tenfold in
a future life, or expends the same sum on the improvement
of an estate which will yield interest, certainly late, but
all the more surely and largely. And he who for the sake
of orthodoxy commits the heretic to the flames is 9S much
a murderer as the bandit who does it for gain; and indeed,
as regards inward circumstances, so also was he who slaugh-
tered the Turks in the Holy Land, if, like the burner of
heretics, he really did so because he thought that he would
thereby gain a place in heaven. For these are careful only
for themselves, for their own egoism, just like the bandit,
from whom they are only distinguished by the absurdity of
their means. From without, as has been said, the will can
only be reached through motives, and these only alter the

^ The Church would say that these are merely opera operatet,
which do not avail unless grace gives the faith which leads to th<5
new birth. But of this farther on.

THE WORLD AS WILL 301

way in which it expresses itself, never the will itself. Velh
non discitur.

In the case of good deeds, however, the doer of which
appeals to dogmas, we must always distinguish whether
these dogmas really are the motives which lead to the good
deeds, or whether, as was said above, they are merely the
illusive account of them with which he seeks to satisfy his
own reason with regard to a good deed which really flows
from quite a different source, a deed which he does because
he is good, though he does not understand how to explain
it rightly, and yet wishes to think something with regard to
it. But this distinction is very hard to make, because it lies
in the heart of a man. Therefore, we can scarcely ever pass
a correct moral judgment on the action of others, and very
seldom on our own. The deeds and conduct of an individual
and of a nation may be very much modified through
dogmas, example, and custom. But in themselves all deeds
{ofera oferata) are merely empty forms, and only the dis**
position which leads to them gives them moral significance,
This disposition, however, may be quite the same when its.
outward manifestation is very different. With an equal
degree of wickedness, one man may die on the wheel, and
another in the bosom of his family. It may be the same
grade of wickedness which expresses itself in one nation in
the coarse characteristics of murder and cannibalism, and
in another finely and softly in miniature, in court intrigues,
oppressions, and delicate plots of every kind; the inner
nature remains the same. It is conceivable that a perfect
state, or perhaps indeed a complete and firmly believed doc-
trine of rewards and punishments after death, might pre-
vent every crime; politically much would be gained
thereby; morally, nothing; only the expression of the will
in life would be restricted.

Thus genuine goodness of disposition, disinterested
virtue, and pure nobility do not proceed from abstract

302

THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

knowledge. Yet they do proceed from knowledge; but it is
a direct intuitive knowledge, which can neither be reasoned
away, nor arrived at by reasoning, a knowledge which, just
because it is not abstract, cannot be communicated, but must
arise in each for himself, which therefore finds its real and
adequate expression not in words, but only in deeds, in con-
duct, in the course of the life of man. We who here seek the
theory of virtue, and have therefore also to express ab-
stractly the nature of the knowledge which lies at its foun-
dation, will yet be unable to convey that knowledge itself ia
this expression. We can only give the concept of this knowl-
edge, and thus always start from action in which alone it
becomes visible, and refer to action as its only adequate
expression. We can only explain and interpret action, i.e.,
express abstractly what really takes place in it.

§ 67. We have seen how justice proceeds from the pene-
tration of the frincifiuTJi individuationis in a less degree,
and hov/ from its penetration in a higher degree there arises
goodness of disposition proper, which shows itself as Dure,
i,e.y disinterested love towards others. When now the latter
becomes perfect, it places other individuals and their fate
completely on the level with itself and its own fate. Fur-
ther than this it cannot go, for there exists no reason for
preferring the individuality of another to its own. Yet the
number of other individuals whose whole happiness or life
is in danger may outweigh the regard for one's own par-
ticular well-being. In such a case, the character that has
attained to the highest goodness and perfect nobility will
entirely sacrifice its own well-being and even its life, for
the well-being of many others. So died Codrus. and Leon-
idas, and Regulus, and Decius Mus, and Arnold von Win-
kelried; so dies every one who voluntarily and consciously
faces certain death for his friends or his country. And they
also stand on the same level who voluntarily submit to suf-
fering and death for maintaining what conduces and rightly

THE WORLD AS WILL 303^

belongs to the welfare of all mankind; that is, i'or main-
taining universal and important truths and destroying great
errors. So died Socrates and Giordano Bruno, and so many a
hero of the truth suffered death at the stake at the hands
of the priests.

Now, however, I must remind the reader, with reference
to the paradox stated above, that we found before that suf-
fering is essential to life as a whole, and inseparable from
it. And that we saw that every wish proceeds from a need,
from a want, from suffering, and that therefore every satis-
faction is only the removal of a pain, and brings no positive
happiness; that the joys certainly lie to the wish, presenting
themselves as a positive good, but in truth they have only a
negative nature, and are only the end of an evil. Therefore
what goodness, love, and nobleness do for others, is always
merely an alleviation of their suffering, and consequently
all that can influence them to good deeds and works of love,
is simply the knowledge of the suffering of others y which is
directly understood from their own suffering and placed
on a level with it. But it follows from this that pure love
(aya7i7]j caritas) is in its nature sympathy; whether the suf-
fering it mitigates, to which every unsatisfied wish belongs,
be great or small. Theiefore we shall have no hesitation,
in direct contradiction to Kant, who will only recognise all
true goodness and all virtue to be such, if it has proceeded
from abstract reflection, and indeed from the conception of
duty and of the categorical imperative, and explains felt
sympathy as weakness, and by no means virtue, we shall
have no hesitation, I say, in direct contradiction to Kant, in
saying: the mere concept is for genuine virtue just as un*
fruitful as it is for genuine art: all true and pure love is
sympathy, and all love which is not sympathy is selfishness.
Combinations of the two frequently occur. Indeed genuine
friendship is always a mixture of selfishness and sympathy;
the former lies in the pleasure experienced in the presence

^04 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

of the friend, whose individuality corresponds to our own,
and this almost always constitutes the greatest part; sym-
pathy shows itself in the sincere participation in his joy and
grief, and the disinterested sacrifices made in respect of the
latter. As a confirmation of our paradoxical proposition it
jnay be observed that the tone and words of the language
and caresses of pure love, entirely coincide with the tones
of sympathy; and we may also remark in passing that in
Italian sympathy and true love are denoted by the same
word fieta.

I now take up the thread of our discussion of the ethical
significance of action, in order to show how, from the same
source from which all goodness, love, virtue, and nobility
of character spring, there finally arises that which I call the
denial of the will to live.

We saw before that hatred and wickedness are condi-
tioned by egoism, and egoism rests on the entanglement of
knowledge in the frtncifium individuation} s . Thus we
found *^hi.t the penetration of that frincifium individua-
tionis is the source and the nature of justice, and when it is
carried further, even to its fullest extent, it is the source and
nature of love and nobility of character. For this penetra-
tion alone, by abolishing the distinction between our own
individuality and that of others, renders possible and ex-
plains perfect goodness of disposition, extending to disin-
terested love and the most generous self-sacrifice for others.

If, however, this penetration of the frincifium individual
tionisy this direct knowledge of the identity of will in all
its manifestations, is present in a high degree of distinctness,
it will at once show an influence upon the will which ex-
tends still further. If that veil of Maya, the frincifium in"
dividuationis, is lifted from the eyes of a man to such an
extent that he no longer makes the egotistical distinction be-
tween his persor and that of others, but takes as much in-
terest in the sufferings of other individuals as in his own,

THE WORLD AS WILL 305

and therefore is not only benevolent in the highest degree,
but even ready to sacrifice his own individuality whenever
such a sacrifice will save a number of other persons, then it
clearly follows that such a man, who recognises in all beings
his own inmost and true self, must also regard the infinite
suffering of all suffering beings as his own, and take on
himself the pain of the whole world. No suffermg is an)
longer strange to him. All the miseries of others which he
sees and is so seldom able to alleviate, all the miseries he
knows directly, and even those which he only knows as pos-
sible, work upon his mind like his own. It is no longer the
changing joy and sorrow of his own person that he has in
view, as is the case with him who is still involved in egoism ;
but, since he sees through the frinclfium individuationisy all
lies equally near him. He knows the whole, comprehends itJ
nature, and finds that it consists in a constant passing away,
vain striving, inward conflict, and continual suffering. He
sees wherever he looks suffering humanity, the suffering
brute creation, and a world that passes away. But all this
now lies as near him as his own person lies to the egoist.
Why should he now, with such knowledge of the world,
assert this very life through constant acts of will, and
thereby bind himself ever more closely to it, press it ever
more firmly to himself? Thus he who is still involved in
the frincifium individuationis , in egoism, only knows par-
ticular things and their relation to his own person, and these
constantly become new motives of his volition. But, on the
other hand, that knowledge of the whole, of the nature of
the thing-in-itself which has been described, becomes a
quieter of all and every volition. The will now turns away
from life; it now shudders at the pleasures in which it
recognises the assertion of life. Man now attains to the state
of voluntary renunciation, resignation, true indifference^,
and perfect will-lessness. If at times, in the hard experience
of our own suffering, or in the vivid recognition of that of

306 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

others, the knowledge of the vanity and bitterness of life
draws nigh to us also who are still wrapt in the veil of
Maya, and we would like to destroy the sting of the desires,
close the entrance against all suffering, and purify and
sanctify ourselves by complete and final renunciation; yet
the illusion of the phenomenon soon entangles us again, and
its motives influence the will anew; we cannot tear our'
selves free. The allurement of hope, the flattery of the
present, the sweetness of pleasure, the well-being which
falls to our lot, amid the lamentations of a suffering world
governed by chance and error, draws us back to it and rivets
our bonds anew. Therefore Jesus says: "It is easier for a
camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man
to enter into the kingdom of God."

If we compare life to a course or path through which v/e
must unceasingly run — a path of red-hot coals, with a few
cool places here and there; then he who is entangled in
delusion is consoled by the cool places, on which he now
stands, or which he sees near him, and sets out to run
through the course. But he who sees through the frincHium
indwtduationis y and recognises the real nature of the thing-
in-itself, and thus the whole, is no longer susceptible of
such consolation; he sees himself in all places at once, and
v/ithdraws. His will turns round, no longer asserts its own
nature, which is reflected in the phenomenon, but denies it.
"^he phenomenon by which this change is marked, is the
transition from virtue to asceticism. That is to say, it no
lon^^r suflJices for such a man to love others as himself, and
to do us much for them as for himself; but there arises
within him a horror of the nature of which his own phe-
nomenal existence is an expression, the will to live, the
kernel a/^d inner nature of that world which is recognised
as full ot misery. He therefore disowns this nature which
Appears in him, and is already expressed through his body,
find his action gives the lie to his phenomenal existence, and

THE WORLD AS WILL 30;

appears in open contradiction to it. Essentially nothing else
but a manifestation of will, he ceases to will anything,
guards against attaching his will to anything, and seeks to
confirm in himself the greatest indifference to everything^
His body, healthy and strong, expresses through the genitals,
the sexual impulse; but he denies the will and gives the \k
to the body; he desires no sensual gratification under any
condition. Voluntary and complete chastity is the first step
in asceticism or the denial of the will to live. It thereby de-
nies the assertion of the will which extends beyond the in-
dividual life, and gives the assurance that with the life ot
this body, the will, whose manifestation it is, ceases. Nature,
always true and naive, declares that if this maxim became
universal, the human race would die out; and I think I may
assume, in accordance with what was said in the Second
Book about the connection of all manifestations of will,
that with its highest manifestation, the weaker reflection of
it would also pass away, as the twilight vanishes along with
the full light. With the entire abolition of knowledge, the
rest of the world would of itself vanish into nothing; for
without a subject there is no object. I shoula like here to
refer to a passage in the Vedas, where it is said: "As in this
world hungry infants press round their mother; so do all
beings await the holy oblation." (Asiatic Researches, voL
viii.; Colebrooke, On the Vedas, Abstract of the Sama-
Veda; also in Colebrooke's Miscellaneous Essays, vol. i. p.
79.) Sacrifice means resignation generally, and the rest of
nature must look for its salvation to man who is at once the
priest and the sacrifice. Indeed it deserves to be noticed as
very remarkable, that this thought has also been expressed
by the admirable and unfathomably profound Angelus
Silcsius, in the little poem entitled, "Man brings all to
God"; it runs, "Man! all loves thee; around thee great is
the throng. All things flee to thee that they may attain tG
God." But a yet greater mystic, Meister Eckhard, whose

3o8 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

wonderful writings are at last accessible (1857) through
the edition of Franz Pfeiffer, says the same thing (p. 459)
quite in the sense explained here: "I bear witness to the say-
ing of Christ, ^I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw
all things unto me' (John xii, 32). So shall the good man
draw all things up to God, to the source whence they first
came. The Masters certify to us that all creatures are made
for the sake of man. This is proved in all created things,
by the fact that the one makes use of the other; the ox
makes use of the grass, the fish of the water, the bird of the
air, the wild beast of the forest. Thus, all created things
become of use to the good man. A good man brings to God
the one created thing in the other." He means to say, that
man makes use of the brutes in this life because, in and
with himself, he saves them also. It also seems to me that
that difficult passage in the Bible, Rom. viii. 21-24, must be
interpreted in this sense.

In Buddhism also, there is no lack of expressions of this
truth. For example, when Buddha, still as Bodisatwa, has
his horse saddled for the last time, for his flight into the
wilderness from his father's house, he says these lines to the
horse: "Long hast thou existed in life and in death, but now
thou shalt cease from carrying and drawing. Bear me but
this once more, O Kantakana, away from here, and when I
have attained to the Law (have become Buddha) I will not
forget thee" (Foe Koue Ki, trad. p. Abel Remusat, p. 233).

Asceticism then shows itself further in voluntary and in-
tentional poverty, which not only arises fer accidenSy be-
cause the possessions are given away to mitigate the sufferings
of others, but is here an end in itself, is meant to serve as a
constant mortification of will, so that the satisfaction of the
wishes, the sweet of life, shall not again arouse the will,
against which self-knowledge has conceived a horror. He
who has attained to this point, still always feels, as a living
"kody, as concrete manifestation of wilL the natural disposi-

THE WORLD AS WILL 30V

lion for every kind of volition; but he intentionally sup
presses it, for he compels himself to refrain from doing all
that he would like to do, and to do all that he would like not
to do, even if this has no further end than that of serving
as a mortification of will. Since he himself denies the will
which appears in his own person, he will not resist if an-
other does the same, i.e.y inflicts wrongs upon him. There-
fore every suffering coming to him from without, through
chance or the wickedness of others, is welcome to him,
every injury, ignominy, and insult; he receives them gladly
as the opportunity of learning with certainty that he no
longer asserts the will, but gladly sides with every enemy of
the manifestation of will which is his own person. There-
fore he bears such ignominy and suffering with inexhaus-
tible patience and meekness, returns good for evil without
ostentation, and allows the fire of anger to rise within him
just as little as that of the desires. And he mortifies not only
the will itself, but also its visible form, its objectivity, the
body. He nourishes it sparingly, lest its excessive vigour and
prosperity should animate and excite more strongly the will,
of which it is merely the expression and the mirror. So hcj
practises fasting, and even resorts to chastisement and self-
inflicted torture, in order that, by constant privation andi
suffering, he may more and more break down and destroy
the will, which he recognises and abhors as the source of his
own suffering existence and that of the world. If at last
death comes, which puts an end to this manifestation of that
will, whose existence here has long since perished through
free-denial of itself, with the exception of the weak residue
of it which appears as the life of this body; it is most wel-
come, and is gladly received as a longed-for deliverance.
Here it is not, as in the case of others, merely the manifesta-
tion which ends with death; but the inner nature itself is
abolished, which here existed only in the manifestation, and
that in a very weak degree; this last slight bond is now

310 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

broken. For him who thus ends, the world has ended also.

And what I have here described with feeble tongue and
only in general terms, is no philosophical fable, invented by
myself, and only of to-day; no, it was the enviable life of
so many saints and beautiful souls among Christians, and
still more among Hindus and Buddhists, and also among
the believers of other religions. However different were the
dogmas impressed on their reason, the same inward, direct,
intuitive knowledge from which alone all virtue and holi-
ness proceed, expressed itself in precisely the same way in
the conduct of life. For here also the great distinction be-
tween intuitive and abstract knowledge shows itself; a
distinction which is of such importance and universal ap-
plication in our whole investigation, and which has hitherto
been too little attended to. There is a wide gulf between the
two, which can only be crossed by the aid of philosophy, as
regards the knowledge of the nature of the world. Intui-
tively or in concretOy every man is really conscious of all
philosophical truths, but to bring them to abstract knowl-
edge, to reflection, is the work of philosophy, which neithei
ought nor is able to do more than this.

Thus it may be that the inner nature of holiness, self-
renunciation, mortification of our own will, asceticism, is
here for the first time expressed abstractly, and free from
all mythical elements, as denial of the will to live^ appear-
ing after the complete knowledge of its own nature has
become a quieter of all volition. On the other hand, it has
been known directly and realised in practice by saints and
ascetics, who had all the same inward knowledge, though
they used very different language with regard to it, accord-
ing to the dogmas which their reason had accepted, and in
consequence of which an Indian, a Christian, or a Lama
saint must each give a very different account of his conduct,
which is, however;, of no importance as regards the fact. A
saint may be full of the absurdest superstition, or, on the

THE WORLD AS WILL 31 f

contrary, he may be a philosopher, it is all the same. His
conduct alone certifies that he is a saint, for, in jl moral
regard, it proceeds from knowledge of the world and its
nature, which is not abstractly but intuitively and directly
apprehended, and is only expressed by him in any dogma for
the satisfaction of his reason. It is therefore just as little
needful that a saint should be a philosopher as that a philoso'
pher should be a saint ; just as it is not necessary that a per-
fectly beautiful man should be a great sculptor, or that a
great sculptor should himself be a beautiful man. In gen-
eral, it is a strange demand upon a m.oralist that he should
teach no other virtue than that which he himself possesses.
To repeat the whole nature of the world abstractly, uni-
versally, and distinctly in concepts, and thus to store up, as
it were, a reflected image of it in permanent concepts always
at the command of the reason j this and nothing else is
philosophy.

But the description I have given above of the denial of
the will to live, of the conduct of a beautiful soul, of a
resigned and voluntarily expiating saint, is merely abstract
and general, and therefore cold. As the knowledge from
which the denial of the will proceeds is intuitive and not
abstract, it finds its most perfect expression, not in abstract
conceptions, but in deeds and conduct. Therefore, in order
to understand fully what we philosophically express as de-
nial of the will to live, one must come to know examples
of it in experience and actual life. Certainly they are not to
be met with in daily experience: Nam omnia fnrclara tarn,
dtfficilia quam vara sunty Spinoza admirably says. There-
fore, unless by a specially happy fate we are made eye-
witnesses, we have to content ourselves with descriptions of
the lives of such men. Indian literature, as we see from the
little that we as yet know through translations, is very rich
in descriptions of the lives of saints, penitents, Samanas or
ascetics, Sannyasis or mendicants, and whatever else they

312 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

may be called. The history of the world will, and indeed
must, keep silence about the man whose conduct is the best
and only adequate illustration of this important point of
our investigation, for the material of the history of the
world is quite different, and indeed opposed to this. It is not
the denial of the will to live, but its assertion and its mani-
festation in innumerable individuals in which its conflict
with itself at the highest grade of its objectification appears
with perfect distinctness, and brings before our eyes, now
the ascendancy of the individual through prudence, now the
might of the many through their mass, now the might of
chance personified as fate, always the vanity and emptiness
of the whole effort. We, however, do not follow here the
course of phenomena in time, but, as philosophers, we seek
to investigate the ethical significance of action, and take
this as the only criterion of what for us is significant and
important. Thus we will not be withheld by any fear of
the constant numerical superiority of vulgarity and dulness
from acknowledging that the greatest, most important, and
most significant phenomenon that the world can show is
not the conqueror of the world, but the subduer of it; is
nothing but the quiet, unobserved life of a man who has
attained to the knowledge in consequence of which he sur-
renders and denies that will to live which fills everything
and strives and strains in all, and which first gains freedom
here in him alone, so that his conduct becomes the exact op-
posite of that of other men. In this respect, therefore, for
the philosopher, these accounts of the lives of holy, self-
denying men, badly as they are generally written, and mixed
as they are with superstition and nonsense, are, because of
the significance of the material, immeasurably more in-
structive and important than even Plutarch and Livy.

It will further assist us much in obtaining a more definite
and full knowledge of what we have expressed abstractly
and generally, according to our method of exposition, as the

THE WORLD AS WILL 313,

denial of the will to live, if we consider the moral teaching
that has been imparted with this intention, and by men who
were full of this spirit ; and this will also show how old our
view is, though the pure philosophical expression of it may
be quite new. The teaching of this kind whiclb lies nearest
to hand is Christianity, the ethics of which sr? entirely in
the spirit indicated, and lead not only to the highest degrees
of human love, but also to renunciation. The germ of this
last side of it is certainly distinctly present in the writings
of the Apostles, but it was only fully developed and ex-
pressed later. We find the Apostles enjoining the love of
our neighbour as ourselves, benevolence, the requital of
Iiatred with love and well-doing, patience, meekness, the
endurance of all possible injuries without resistance, ab-
stemiousness in nourishment to keep down lust, resistance to
sensual desire, if possible, altogether. We already see here
the first degrees of asceticism, or denial of the will proper.
This last expression denotes that which in the Gospels is
called denying ourselves and taking up the cross (Matt. xvi.
24, 25; Mark viii. 34, 35; Luke ix. 23, 24, xiv. 26, 27,
33). This tendency soon developed itself more and more,,
and was the origin of hermits, anchorites, and monasticism
— an origin which in itself was pure and holy, but for that
very reason unsuitable for the great majority of men; there-
fore what developed out of it could only be hypocrisy and
wickedness, for abusus oftimi fessimus. In more developed
Christianity, we see that seed of asceticism unfold into the
full flower in the writings of the Christian saints and mys-
tics. These preach, besides the purest love, complete resigna-
tion, voluntary and absolute poverty, genuine calmness,
perfect indifference to all worldly things, dying to our own.
will and being born again in God, entire /orgetting of our
own person, and sinking ourselves in the contemplation of
God. A full exposition of this will be round in Fenelon's
"Explication des Maximes des Saints sur la Vie Interieure."

314 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

But the spirit of this development of Christianity is cer-
tainly nowhere so fully and powerfully expressed as in the
writings of the German mystics, in the works of Meister
Eckhard, and in that justly famous book "Die Deutsche
Theologie," of which Luther says in the introduction to it
which he wrote, that with the exception of the Bible and St.
Augustine, he had learnt more from it of what God, Christ,
and man are than from any other book. The precepts and
doctrines which are laid down there are the most perfect
exposition, sprung from deep inward conviction of what I
have presented as the denial of the will. Tauler's "Nachfol-
-gung des armen Leben Christi," and also his "Medulla
Animas," are written in the same admirable spirit, though
♦lot quite equal in value to that work. In my opinion the
leaching of these genuine Christian mystics, when com-
pared with the teaching of the New Testament, is as alcohol
to wine, or what becomes visible in the New Testament as
through a veil and mist appears to us in the works of the
mystics without cloak or disguise, in full clearness and dis-
tinctness. Finally, the New Testament might be regarded
as the first initiation, the mystics as the second.

We find, however, that which we have called the denial
of the will to live more fully developed, more variously
expressed, and more vividly represented in the ancient San-
scrit writings than could be the case in the Christian Church
and the Western world. That this important ethical view of
life could here attain to a fuller development and a more
distinct expression is perhaps principally to be ascribed to the
fact that it was not confined by an element quite foreign to
it, as Christianity is by the Jewish theology, to which its
sublime author had necessarily to adopt and accommodate
It, partly consciously, partly, it may be, unconsciously. Thus
Christianity is made up of two very different constituent
parts, and I should like to call the purely ethical part espe-
cially and indeed exclusively Christian, and distinguish it

THE WORLD AS WILL 313

from the Jewish dogmatism with which it is combined. If^
as has often been feared, and especially at the present time,>
that excellent and salutary religion should altogether de-
cline, I should look for the reason of this simply in the fact
that it does not consist of one single element, but of two
originally different elements, which have only been com-
bined through the accident of history. In such a case dis-
solution had to follow through the separation of these
elements, arising from their different relationship to and
reaction against the progressive spirit of the age. But even
after this dissolution the purely ethical part must always re-
main uninjured, because it is indestructible. Our knowledge
of Hindu literature is still very imperfect. Yet, as we find
their ethical teaching variously and powerfully expressed in
the Vedas, Puranas, poems, myths, legends of their saints,.
maxims and precepts, we see that it inculcates love of our
neighbour with complete renunciation of self-love; love
generally, not confined to mankind, but including all living
creatures; benevolence, even to the giving away of the
hard- won wages of daily toil; unlimited patience towards
all who injure us; the requital of all wickedness, however
base, with goodness and love ; voluntary and glad endurance
of all ignominy; abstinence from all animal food; perfect
chastity and renunciation of all sensual pleasure for hir»
who strives after true holiness; the surrender of all posses-
sions, the forsaking of every dwelling-place and of all rela'^
tives; deep unbroken solitude, spent in silent contemplation,
with voluntary penance and terrible slow self-torture for the
absolute mortification of the will, torture which extends to
voluntary death by starvation, or by men giving themselves
up to crocodiles, or flinging themselves over the sacred preci'
pice in the Himalayas, or being buried alive, or, finally, by
flinging themselves under the wheels of the huge car of an
idol drawn along amid the singing, shouting, and dancing
of bayaderes. And even yet these precepts, whose origin

3i6 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

reaches back more than four thousand years, are carried out
in practice, in some cases even to the utmost extreme,^ and
this notwithstanding the fact that the Hindu nation has been
broken up into so many parts. A religion which demands
the greatest sacrifices, and which has yet remained so long
in practice in a nation that embraces so many millions of
persons, cannot be an arbitrarily invented superstition, but
must have its foundation in the nature of man. But besides
this, if we read the life of a Christian penitent or saint, and
aIso that of a Hindu saint, we cannot sufl^ciently wonder at
the harmony we find between them. In the case of such
radically different dogmas, customs, and circumstances, the
inward life and effort of both is the same. And the same
harmony prevails in the maxims prescribed for both of
them. For example, Tauler speaks of the absolute poverty
which one ought to seek, and which consists in giving away
and divesting oneself completely of everything from which
one might draw comfort or worldly pleasure, clearly be-
cause all this constantly afiFords new nourishment to the
will, which it is intended to destroy entirely. And as an In-
dian counterpart of this, we find in the precepts of Fo that
the Saniassi, who ought to be without a dwelling and en-
tirely without property, is further finally enjoined not to lay
himself down often under the same tree, lest he should ac-
*v|uire a preference or inclination for it above other trees.
/The Christian mystic and the teacher of the Vedanta phi-
losophy agree in this respect also, they both regard all out-
ward works and religious exercises as superfluous for him
ivho has attained to perfection. So much agreement in the
rase of such difiperent ages and nations is a practical proof
that what is expressed here is not, as optimistic dulness likes
to assert, an eccentricity and perversity of the mind, but an

1 At the procession of Jagganath in June, 1840, eleven Hindus threw
themselves under the wheels, and were instantly killed. (Letter of an
East Indian proprietor in the Times of 30th December, 1840.)

THE WORLD AS WILL 317

essential side of human nature, which only appears so rarely
because of its excellence.

I have now indicated the sources from which there ma^
be obtained a direct knowledge, drawn from life itself, of
the phenomena in which the denial of the will to live ex-'
hibits itself. In some respects this is the most important point
of our whole work; yet I have only explained it quite gen-
erally, for it is better to refer to those who speak from
direct experience, than to increase the size of this book un-
duly by weak repetitions of what is said by them.

I only wish to add a little to the general indication of the
nature of this state. We saw above that the wicked man, by
the vehemence of his volition, suffers constant, consuming,
inward pain, and finally, if all objects of volition are ex-
hausted, quenches the fiery thirst of his self-will by the
sight of the suffering of others. He, on the contrary, who
has attained to the denial of the will to live, however poor,
joyless, and full of privation his condition may appear when
looked at externally, is yet filled with inward joy and the
true peace of heaven. It is not the restless strain of life, the
jubilant delight which has keen suffering as its preceding or
succeeding condition, in the experience of the man who
loves life; but it is a peace that cannot be shaken, a deep rest
and inward serenity, a state which we cannot behold without
the greatest longing when it is brought before our eyes or
our imagination, because we at once recognise it as that
which alone is right, infinitely surpassing everything else,
upon which our better self cries within us the great safere
aude. Then we feel that every gratification of our wishes
won from the world is merely like the alms which the beg-
gar receives from life to-day that he may hunger again on
the morrow; resignation, on the contrary, is like an in-
herited estate, it frees the owner for ever from all care.

It will be remembered from the Third Book that the
aesthetic pleasure in the beautiful consists in great measure

3i8 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

in the fact that in entering the state of pure contemplation
we are lifted for the moment above all willing, /*.<?., all
wishes and cares; we become, as it were, freed from our-
selves. We are no longer the individual whose knowledge is
subordinated to the service of its constant willing, the cor-
relative of the particular thing to which objects are motives,
but the eternal subject of knowing purified from will, the
correlative of the Platonic Idea. And we know that these
moments in which, delivered from the ardent strain of will,
we seem to rise out of the heavy atmosphere of drth, are
the happiest which we experience. From this we can under-
stand how blessed the life of a man must be whose will is
silenced, not merely for a moment, as in the enjoyment of
the beautiful, but for ever, indeed altogether extinguished,
except as regards the last glimmering spark that retains the
body in life, and will be extinguished with its death. Such
a man, who, after many bitter struggles with liis own na-
ture, has finally conquered entirely, continues ti> exist only
as a pure, knowing being, the undimmed mirror of the
world. Nothing can trouble him more, nothing can move
him, for he has cut all the thousand cords of will which
hold us bound to the world, and, as desire, fear, envy, anger,
drag us hither and thither in constant pain. He now looks
back smiling and at rest on the delusions of this world,
which once were able to move and agonise his spirit also, but
which now stands before him as utterly indifferent to him,
as the chess-men when the game is ended, or as, in the
morning, the cast-off masquerading dress which worried and
disquieted us in a night in Carnival. Life and its forms now
pass before him as a fleeting illusion, as a light morning
dream before half -waking eyes, the real wond alreadv shin-
ing through it so that it can no longer deceive; and like this
morning dream, they finally vanish altogether without any
violent transition.

We must not, however, suppose that when, by means of

THE WORLD AS WILL 319

the knowledge which acts as a quieter of will, the denial
of the will to live has once appeared, it never wavers or
vacillates, and that we can rest upon it as on an assured pos-
session. Rather, it must ever anew be attained by a constant
battle. For since the body is the will itself only in the form
qf^pbjectivity or as manifestation in the world as idea, so
long as the body lives, the wh^le vvnll to live exists poten-
tially, and constantly strives to become actual, and to burn
again with all its ardour. Therefore that peace and blessed-
ness in the life of holy men which we have described is only
found as the flower v/hich proceeds from the constant vic-
tory over the will, and the ground in which it grows is the
constant battle with the will to live, for no one can have
lasting peace upon earth. We therefore see the histories of
the inner life of saints full of spiritual conflicts, tempta-
tions, and absence of grace, i.e., the kind of knowledge
which makes all motives ineffectual, and as an universal
quieter silences all volition, gives the deepest peace and
opens the door of freedom. Therefore also we see those whc
have once attained to the denial of the will to live strive
with all their might to keep upon this path, by enforced re-
nunciation of every kind, by penance and severity of life,
and by selecting whatever is disagreeable to them, all in
order to suppress the will, which is constantly springing up
anew. Hence, finally, because they already know the value
of salvation, their anxious carefulness to retain the hard-
won blessing, their scruples of conscience about every inno-
cent pleasure, or about every little excitement of their vanity,
which here also dies last, the most immovable, the most ac-
tive, and the most foolish of all the inclinations of man.
By the term asceticism^ which I have used so often, I mean
in its narower sense this intentional breaking of the will by
the refusal of what is agreeable and the selection of what
is disagreeable, the voluntarily chosen life of penance and
self -chastisement fer the continual mortification of the will.

320 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

We see this practised by him who has attained to the de-
nial of the will in order to enable him to persist in it; but
Buffering in general, as it is inflicted by fate, is a second way
(deviSQog nXovg ^) of attaining to that denial. Indeed, we
may assume that most men only attain to it in this way, and
that it is the suffering which is personally experienced, not
that which is merely known, which most frequently pro-
duces complete resignation, often only at the approach of
death. For only in the case of a few is the mere knowledge
"whichj seeing through the frincifium individuationis, first
produces perfect goodness of disposition and universal love
of humanity, and finally enables them to regard all the suf-
fering of the world as their own ; only in the case of a few,
I say, is this knowledge sufficient to bring about the denial of
the will. Even with him who approaches this point, it is al-
most invariably the case that the tolerable condition of his
own body, the flattery of the moment, the delusion of hope,
and the satisfaction of the will, which is ever presenting it-
self anew, i.e., lust, is a constant hindrance to the denial of
the will, and a constant temptation to the renewed assertion
of it. Therefore in this respect all these illusions have been
personified as the devil. Thus in most cases the will must be
broken by great personal suffering before its self -conquest
appears. Then we see the man who has passed through all
the increasing degrees of affliction with the most vehement
resistance, and is finally brought to the verge of despair,
suddenly retire into himself, know himself and the world,
change his whole nature, rise above himself and all suffer-
ing, as if purified and sanctified by it, in inviolable peace,
blessedness, and sublimity, willingly renounce everything he
previously desired with all his might, and joyfully embrace
death. It is the refined silver of the denial of the will to live
that suddenly comes forth from the purifying flame of suf-
fering. It is salvation. Sometimes we see even those who

1 On Sevrepos wXovs cf. Stob. Floril., vol. ii. p, 374.

THE WORLD AS WILL 321

were very wicked purified to this degree by great grief;
they have become new beings and are completely changed.
Therefore their former misdeeds trouble their consciences
no more, yet they willingly atone for them by death, and
gladly see the end of the manifestation of that will which
is now foreign to them and abhorred by them.

The more intense the will is, the more glaring is the con-
flict of its manifestation, and thus the greater is the suffer-
ing. A world which was the manifestation of a far more
intense will to live than this world manifests would produce
so much the greater suffering; would thus be a hell.

All suffering, since it is a mortification and a call ta
resignation, has potentially a sanctifying power. This is the
explanation of the fact that every great misfortune or deep-
pain inspires a certain awe. But the sufferer only really be-
comes an object of reverence when, surveying the course of
his life as a chain of sorrows, or mourning some great and
incurable misfortune, he does not really look at the special
combination of circumstances which has plunged his owr^
life into suffering, nor stops at the single great misfortune
that has befallen him; for in so doing his knowledge still
follows the principle of sufficient reason, and clings to the
particular phenomenon; he still wills life only not under
the conditions which have happened to him; but only then,
I say, Jie is truly worthy of reverence when he raises his
glance from the particular to the universal, when he re-
gards his suffering as merely an example of the whole, and
for him, since in a moral regard he partakes of genius, one
case stands for a thousand, so that the whole of life con-
ceived as essentially suffering brings him to resignation.

A very noble character we always imagine with a cer-
tain trace of quiet sadness, which is anything but a constant
fretfulness at daily annoyances (this would be an ignoble
trait, and lead us to fear a bad disposition), but is a con-
sciousness derived from knowledge of the vanity of all pos-

322 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER '

sessions, of the suffering of all life, not merely of his own.
But such knowledge may primarily be awakened by the
personal experience of suffering, especially some one great
sorrow, as a single unfulfilled wish brought Petrarch to that
state of resigned sadness concerning the whole of life which
appeals to us so pathetically in his works; for the Daphne
he pursued had to flee from his hands in order to leave him,
instead of herself, the immortal laurel. When through some
such great and irrevocable denial of fate the will is to some
extent broken, almost nothing else is desired, and the char-
acter shows itself mild, just, noble, and resigned. When,
finally, grief has no definite object, but extends itself over
the whole of life, then it is to a certain extent a going into
itself, a withdrawal, a gradual disappearance of the will,
whose visible manifestation, the body, it imperceptibly but
surely undermines, so that a man feels a certain loosening
of his bonds, a mild foretaste of that death which promises
to be the abolition at once of the body and of the will.
Therefore a secret pleasure accompanies this grief, and it is
this, as I believe, which the most melancholy of all nations
has called "the joy of grief." But here also lies the danger
of sentimentality y both in life itself and in the representa-
tion of it in poetry; when a man is always mourning and
lamenting without courageously rising to resignation. In
this way we lose both earth and heaven, and retain merely
a watery sentimentality. Only if suffering assumes the form
of pure knowledge, and this, acting as a quieter of the will,
brings about resignation, is it worthy of reverence. In this
regard, however, we feel a certain respect at the sight of
every great sufferer which is akin to the feeling excited by
nrtue and nobility of character, and also seems like a re-
proach of our own happy condition. We cannot help regard-
ing every sorrow, both our own and those of others, as at
least a potential advance towards virtue and holiness, and,
on the contrary, pleasures and worldly satisfactions as a

THE WORLD AS WILL 323

retrogression from them. This goes so far, that every man
who endures a great bodily or mental suffering, indeed
every one who merely performs some physical labour which
demands the greatest exertion, in the sweat of his brow and
with evident exhaustion, yet with patience and without mur-
muring, every such man I say, if we consider him with
close attention, appears to us like a sick man who tries ?
painful cure, and who willingly, and even with satisfaction,
endures the suffering it causes him, because he knows that
the more he suffers the more the cause of his disease is af-
fected, and that therefore the present suffering is the meas-
ure of his cure.

According to what has been said, the denial of the will
to live, which is just what is called absolute, entire resigna-
tion, or holiness, always proceeds from that quieter of th^
will which the knowledge of its inner conflict and (ssential
vanity, expressing themselves in the suffering of all living
things, becomes. The difference, which we have represented
as two paths, consists in whether that knowledge is called
up by suffering which is merely and purely knowriy and is
freely appropriated by means of the penetration of the ^n«-
ciftum individuationisy or by suffering which is directly
fslt by a man himself. True salvation, deliverance from
life and suffering, cannot even be imagined without com-
plete denial of the will. Till then, every one is simply this
will itself, whose manifestation is an ephemeral existence,
a constantly vain and empty striving, and the world full of
suffering we have represented, to which all irrevocably and
in like maniier belong. For we found above that life is air-
ways assured to the will to live, and its one real form is the
present, from which they can never escape, since birth and
death reign in the phenomenal world. The Indian mythus
expresses this by saying "they are born again." The great
ethical difference of character means this, that the bad man
is infinitely far from the attainment of the knowledge from

3^4

THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

A^hich the denial of the will proceeds, and therefore he is
jn truth actually exposed to all the miseries which appear in
life as fossible; for even the present fortunate condition of
his personality is merely a phenomenon produced by the
princifium individuationis, and a delusion of Maya, the
happy dream of a beggar. The sufferings which in the vehe-
mence and ardour of his will he inflicts upon others are the
yneasure of the suffering, the experience of which in his
own person cannot break his will, and plainly lead it to the
denial of itself. All true and pure love, on the other hand,
jind even all free justice, proceed from the penetration of
the frincifium individuationis y which, if it appears with its
full power, results in perfect sanctiiication and salvation,
the phenomenon of which is the state of resignation de-
scribed above, the unbroken peace which accompanies it,
and the greatest delight in death.^

§ 69. Suicide, the actual doing away with the individual
manifestation of will, differs most widely from the denial
of the will to live, which is the single outstanding act of
free will in the manifestation, and is therefore, as Asmus
calls it, the transcendental change. This last has been fully
considered in the course of our work. P]ar from being de-
nial of the will, suicide is a phenomenon of strong assertion
.of will; for the essence of negation lies in this, that the joys
of life are shunned, not its sorrows. The suicide wills life,
and is only dissatisfied with the conditions under which it
has presented itself to him. He therefore by no means sur-
renders the will to live, but only life, in that he destroys the
individual manifestation. He wills life — wills the unre-
stricted existence and assertion of the body; but the compli-
cation of circumstances does not allow this, and there results
for him great suffering. The very will to live finds itself so
much hampered in this particular manifestation that it can-
yiot put forth its energies. It therefore comes to such a de«
^" *• Cf. Ch- xlviii. of the Supplement.

THE WORLD AS WILL 325

termination as is in conformity with its own nature, which
lies outside the conditions of the principle of sufficient rea-
son, and to which, therefore, all particular manifestations
are alike indifferent, inasmuch as it itself remains unaf-
fected by all appearing and passing away, and is the inner
life of all things; for that firm inward assurance by reason
of which we all live free from the constant dread of death,
the assurance that a phenomenal existence can never be
wanting to the will, supports our action even in the case of
suicide. Thus the will to live appears just as much in suicide
(Siva) as in the satisfaction of self-preservation (Vishnu)
and in the sensual pleasure of procreation (Brahma). This
is the inner meaning of the unity of the Trimurtis, which
is embodied in its entirety in every human being, though in
time it raises now one, now another, of its three heads.
Suicide stands in the same relation to the denial of the will
as the individual thing does to the Idea. The suicide deniea
only the individual, not the species. We have already seen
that as life is always assured to the will to live, and as sor-
row is inseparable from life, suicide, the wilful destruction
of the single phenomenal existence, is a vain and foolish
act; for the thing-in-itself remains unaffected by it, even
as the rainbow endures however fast the drops which sup-
port it for the moment may change. But, more than this, it
is also the masterpiece of Maya, as the most flagrant ex-
ample of the contradiction of the will to live with itself.
As we found this contradiction in the case of the lowest,
manifestations of will, in the permanent struggle of all the
forces of nature, and of all organic individuals for matter
and time and space; and as we saw this antagonism come
ever more to the front with terrible distinctness in the
ascending grades of the objectification of the will, so at
last in the highest grade, the Idea of man, it reaches the
point at which, not only the individuals which express the
same Idea extirpate each other, but even the same individual.

326 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

declares war against itself. The vehemence with which it
wills life, and revolts against what hinders it, namely, suf^
fering, brings it to the point of destroying itself; so that the
individual will, by its own act, puts an end to that body
which is merely its particular visible expression, rather than
permit suffering to break the will. Just because the suicide
cannot give up willing, he gives up living. The will asserts
itself here even in putting an end to its own manifestation,
because it can no longer assert itself otherwise. As, however,
it was just the suffering which it so shuns that was able, as
mortification of the will, to bring it to the denial of itself,
and hence to freedom, so in this respect the suicide is like
a sick man, who, after a painful operation which would en-
tirely cure him has been begun, will not allow it to be com-
pleted, but prefers to retain his disease. Suffering approaches
and reveals itself as the possibility of the denial of will ; but
the will rejects it, in that it destroys the body, the manifes-
tation of itself, in order that it may remain unbroken. This
is the reason why almost all ethical teachers, whether philo-
sophical or religious, condemn suicide, although they them-
selves can only give far-fetched sophistical reasons for their
opinion. But if a human being was ever restrained from
committing suicide by purely moral motives, the inmost
meaning of this self -conquest (in whatever ideas his reason
may have clothed it) was this: "I will not shun suffering, in
order that it may help to put an end to the will to live, whose
manifestation is so wretched, by so strengthening the knowl-
edge of the real nature of the world which is already be-
ginning to dawn upon me, that it may become the final
quieter of my will, and may free me for ever."

§ 70. It might be supposed that the entire exposition
(now terminated) of that which I call the denial of the
will is irreconcilable with the earlier explanation of neces-
sity, which belongs just as much to motivation as to every
other form of the principle of sufficient reason, and accord-

THE WORLD AS WILL 32}

ing to which, motives, like all causes, are only occasional
causes, upon which the character unfolds its nature and re-
veals it with the necessity of a natural law, on account of
which we absolutely denied freedom as liberum arbitrium
indifer entice. But far from suppressing this here, I would
call it to mind. In truth, real freedom, i.e.y independence of
the principle of sufficient reason, belongs to the will only as
a thing-in-itself, not to its manifestation, whose essential
form is everywhere the principle of sufficient reason, the
element or sphere of necessity. But the one case in which
that freedom can become directly visible in the manifesta^
tion is that in which it makes an end of what manifests it-
self, and because the mere manifestation, as a link in th^
chain of causes, the living body in time, which contains only
phenomena, still continues to exist, the will which mani-
fests itself through this phenomenon then stands in contra-
diction to it, for it denies what the phenomenon expresses.
In such a case the organs of generation, for example, as the
visible form of the sexual impulse, are there and in health;
but yet, in the inmost consciousness, no sensual gratification
is desired; and although the whole body is only the visible
expression of the will to live, yet the motives which corre-
spond to this will no longer act; indeed, the dissolution of
the body, the end of the individual, and in this way the
greatest check to the natural will, is welcome and desired.
Now, the contradiction between our assertions of the neces'
sity of the determination of the will by motives, in accord-
ance with the character, on the one hand, and of the
possibility of the entire suppression of the will whereby the
motives become powerless, on the other hand, is only the
repetition in the reflection of philosophy of this real con-
tradiction which arises from the direct encroachment of
the freedom of the will-in-itself, which knows no necessity,
into the sphere of the necessity of its manifestation. But the
key to the solution of these contradictions lies in the fact

328 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

that the state in which the character is withdrawn from the
power of motives does not proceed directly from the will,
but from a changed form of knowledge. So long as the
knowledge is merely that which is involved in the frin-
cifluTTi indlviduationis and exclusively follows the principle
of sufficient reason, the strength of the motives is irre-
sistible. But when the frincifium individuationis is seen
through, when the Ideas, and indeed the inner nature of the
thing-in-itself, as the same will in all, are directly recog-
nised, and from this knowledge a universal quieter of
volition arises, then the particular motives become ineffec-
tive, because the kind of knowledge which corresponds to
them is obscured and thrown into the background by quite
another kind. Therefore the character can never partially
change, but must, with the consistency of a law of Nature,
carry out in the particular the will which it manifests as
a whole. But this whole, the character itself, may be
completely suppressed or abolished through the change of
knowledge referred to above. It is this suppression or aboli-
tion which Asmus, as quoted above, marvels at and denotes
the "catholic, transcendental change"; and in the Christian
Church it has very aptly been called the new birth, and the
knowledge from which it springs, the work of grace. There-
fore it is not a question of a change, but of an entire sup-
pression of the character; and hence it arises that, however
different the characters which experience the suppression
may have been before it, after it they show a great similarity
in their conduct, though every one still speaks very dif-
ferently according to his conceptions and dogmas.

In this sense, then, the old philosophical doctrine of the
freedom of the will, which has constantly been contested
and constantly maintained, is not without ground, and the
dogma of the Church of the work of grace and the new
birth is not without meaning and significance. But we now
unexpectedly see both united in one, and we can also now

THE WORLD AS WILL 329

understand in what sense the excellent Malebranche could
say, "L<7 Liberie est un mysterey* and was right. For pre-
cisely what the Christian mystics call the work of grace and
the new birth, is for us the single direct expression of thi^
freedom of the will. It only appears if the will, having at*«
tained to a knowledge of its own real nature, receives from
this a quieter, by means of which the motives are deprived
of, their effect, which belongs to the province of another
kind of knowledge, the objects of which are merely phe-
nomena. The possibility of the freedom which thus ex-
presses itself is the greatest prerogative of man, which is for
ever wanting to the brute, because the condition of it is the
deliberation of reason, which enables him to survey tho
whole of life independent of the impression of the present*
The brute is entirely without the possibility of freedom, as,
indeed, it is without the possibility of a proper or deliberate
choice following upon a completed conflict of motives-
which for this purpose would have to be abstract ideas
Therefore with the same necessity with which the ston<;
falls to the earth, the hungry wolf buries its fangs in the
flesh of its prey, without the possibility of the knowledge*
that it is itself the destroyed as well as the destroyer. Neces^*
sity is the kingdom of nature; freedom is the kingdom of
grace.

Now because, as we have seen, that self-suffression of
the will proceeds from knowledge, and all knowledge i.?
involuntary, that denial of will also, that entrance into free-
dom, cannot be forcibly attained to by intention or design,
but proceeds from the inmost relation of knowing and
volition m the man, and therefore comes suddenly, as if
spontaneously from without. This is why the Church has
called it the work of grace; and that it still regards it aa
independent of the acceptance of grace corresponds to thei
fact that the effect of the quieter is finally a free act of will.
And because, in consequence of .such a work of grace, the

•,;3o THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

ivhole nature of man is changed and reversed from its
foundation, so that he no longer wills anything of all that
he previously willed so intensely, so that it is as if a new
man actually took the place of the old, the Church has
called this consequence of the work of grace the new birth.
For what it calls the natural many to which it denies all
capacity for good, is just the will to live, which must be
denied if deliverance from an existence such as ours is to be
attained. Behind our existence lies something else, which is
only accessible to us if we have shaken off this world.

Having regard, not to the individuals according to the
principle of sufficient reason, but to the Idea of man in its
unity, Christian theology symbolises naturCy the assertion of
the will to live \n Adam, whose sin, inherited by us, i.e.y our
unity with him in the Idea, which is represented in time by
the bond of procreation, makes us all partakers of suffering
and eternal death. On the other hand, it symbolises gracey
the denial of the willy salvationy in the incarnate God, who,
as free from all sin, that is, from all willing of life, cannot,
like us, have proceeded from the most pronounced assertion
of the will, nor can he, like us, have a body wh^ch is through
»nd through simply concrete will, manifestation of the
will; but born of a pure virgin, he has only a phantom body.
This last is the doctrine of the Docetas, i.e.y certain Church
Fathers, who in this respect are very consistent. It is espe-
cially taught by Apelles, against whom and his followers
Tertullian wrote. But even Augustine comments thus on
the passage, Rom. viii. 3, "God sent his Son in the likeness
of sinful flesh": ^^Non enim caro feccati eraty qucB non de
carnali delectatione nata erat: sed tamen inerat ei similitude
carnis fee catty quia mortalis caro erat^^ {L,iher 87, quoesU
qu. 66). He also teaches in his work entitled ^^Ofus Ini-
ferfectuTUy' i. 47, that inherited sin is both sin and punish-
ment at once. It is already present in new-born children, but
only shows itself if they grow up. Yet the origin of this sin

THE WORLD AS WILL 33r

is to be referred to the will of the sinner. This sinner was
Adam, but we all existed in him; Adam became miserable,
and in him we have all become miserable. Certainly the
doctrine of original sin (assertion of the will) and of salva-
tion (denial of the will) is the great truth which constitutes
the essence of Christianity, while most of what remains is
only the clothing of it, the husk or accessories. Therefore
Jesus Christ ought always to be conceived in the universal,
as the symbol or personification of the denial of the will ta
live, but never as an individual, whether according to hi^
mythical history given in the Gospels, or according to the
probably true history which lies at the foundation of this.
For neither the one nor the other will easily satisfy us en-
tirely. It is merely the vehicle of that conception for the
people, who always demand something actual. That in re-«
cent times Christianity has forgotten its true significance,
and degenerated into dull optimism, does not concern us
here.

It is further an original and evangelical doctrine of
Christianity — which Augustine, with the consent of the
leaders of the Church, defended against the platitudes of
the Pelagians, and which it was the principal aim of Luther'i
endeavour to purify from error and re-establish, as he ex-
pressly declares in his book, ^^De Servo Arbitrioy* — the
doctrine that the will is not freey but originally subject to
the inclination to evil. Therefore according to this doctrine
the deeds of the will are always sinful and imperfect, and
can never fully satisfy justice; and, finally, these works can
never save us, but faith alone, a faith which itself does not
spring from resolution and free will, but from the work
of grace, without our co-operation, comes to us as from
without.

Not only the dogmas referred to before, but also this last
genuine evangelical dogma belongs to those which at the
present day an ignorant and dull opinion rejects as absurd

332 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

/>'- hrJes. For, in spite of Augustine and Luther, it adheres
to the vulgar Pelagianism, which the rationalism of the day
really jj, and treats as antiquated those deeply significant
dogma'j which are peculiar and essential to Christianity in
the Ct'rfctest sense; while, on the other hand, it holds fast
and regards as the principal matter only the dogma that
originates in Judaism, and has been retained from it, and is
merely historically connected with Christianity.

I have here introduced these dogmas of Christian the-
ology, w'hich in themselves are foreign to philosophy, merely
for the purpose of showing that the ethical doctrine which
proceeds from our whole investigation, and is in complete
agreement and connection with all its parts, although new
and unprecedented in its expression, is by no means so in its
real nature, but fully agrees with the Christian dogmas
properly so called, and indeed, as regards its essence, was
contained and present in them. It also agrees quite as ac-
curately with the doctrines and ethical teachings of the
sacred books of India, which in their turn are presented in
quite different forms. At the same time the calling to mind
of the dogmas of the Christian Church serves to explain and
illustrate the apparent contradiction between the necessity
of all expressions of character when motives are presented
(the kingdom of Nature) on the one hand, and the freedom
of the will in itself, to deny itself, and abolish the character
with all the necessity of the motives based upon it (the king-
dom of grace) on the other hand.

§ 71. I now end the general account of ethics, and with
it the whole development of that one thought which it has
been my object to impart; and I by no means desire to con-
ceal here an objection which concerns this last part of my
exposition, but rather to point out that it lies in the nature
of the question, and that it is quite impossible to remove it.
"T^t is this, that after our investigation has brought us to the
point at which we have before our eyes perfect holiness, the

THE WORLD AS WILL 333

denial and surrender of all volition, and thus the deliverance
from a world whose whole existence we have found to be
suffering, this appears to us as a passing away into empty
nothingness. — '•

That which is generally received as positive, which we
call the real, and the negation of which the concept nothing
in its most general significance expresses, is just the world
as idea, which I have shown to be the objectivity and mirror
of the will. Moreover, we ourselves are just tnis will and
this world, and to them belongs the idea in general, as one
aspect of them. The form of the idea is space and time,
therefore for this point of view all that is real must be in
some place and at some time. Denial, abolition, conversion
of the will, is also the abolition and the vanishing of the
world, its mirror. If we no longer perceive it in this mirror^,
we ask in vain where it has gone, and then, because it has no
longer any where and when, complain that it has vanished
into nothing.

A reversed point of view, if it were possible for us^
would reverse the signs and show the real for us as nothing,
and that nothing as the real. But as long as we ourselvef?
are the will to live, this last — nothing as the real — can only
be known and signified by us negatively, because the old
saying of Empedocles, that like can only be known by like,
deprives us here of all knowledge, as, conversely, upon it
finally rests the possibility of all our actual knowledge, i.e.,
the world as idea; for the world is the self-knowledge of
the will.

If, however, it should be absolutely insisted upon that in
some way or other a positive knowledge should be attained
of that which philosophy can only express negatively as the
denial of the will, there would be nothing for it but to
refer to that state which all those who have attained to com-
plete denial of the will have experienced, and which ha'i
been variously denoted by the names ecstasy, rapture, rlhi*

334 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

mination, union with God, and so forth; a state, however,
which cannot properly be called knowledge, because it has
not the form of subject and object, and is, moreover, only
attainable in one's own experience and cannot be further
communicated.

We, however, who consistently occupy the standpoint of
philosophy, must be satisfied here with negative knowledge,
content to have reached the utmost limit of the positive. We
have recognised the inmost nature of the world as will, and
all its phenomena as only the objectivity of will; and we
have followed this objectivity from the unconscious work-
ing of obscure forces of Nature up to the completely con-
scious action of man. Therefore we shall by no means evade
the consequence, that with the free denial, the surrender of
the will, all those phenomena are also abolished; that con-
stant strain and effort without end and without rest at all
the grades of objectivity, in which and through which the
world consists; the multifarious forms succeeding each
other in gradation; the whole manifestation of the will;
and, finally, also the universal forms of this manifestation,
time and space, and also its last fundamental form, subject
and object; all are abolished. No will: no idea, no world.

Before us there is certainly only nothingness. But that
which resists this passing into nothing, our nature, is indeed
just the will to live, which we ourselves are as it is our
world. That we abhor annihilation so greatly, is simply an-
other expression of the fact that we so strenuously will life,
and are nothing but this will, and know nothing besides
it. But if we turn our glance from our own needy and
embarrassed condition to those who have overcome the
world, in whom the will, having attained to perfect self-
knowledge, found itself again in all, and then freely de-
nied itself, and who then merely wait to see the last trace of
it vanish with the body which it animates; then, instead of
the restless striving and effort, instead of the constant transi-

THE WORLD AS WILL 335

tion from wish to fruition, and from joy to sorrow, instead
of the never-satisfied and never-dying hope which consti-
tutes the life of the man who wills, we shall see that peace
which is above all reason, that perfect calm of the spirit,
that deep rest, that inviolable confidence and serenity, the
mere reflection of which in the countenance, as Raphael
and Correggio have represented it, is an entire and certain
gospel; only knowledge remains, the will has vanished. W(
look with deep and painful longing upon this state, besidt!
which the misery and wretchedness of our own is brought
out clearly by the contrast. Yet this is the only consideration
which can afford us lasting consolation, when, on the one
hand, we have recognised incurable suffering and endless
misery as essential to the manifestation of will, the world;
and, on the other hand, see the world pass away with the
abolition of will, and retain before us only empty nothing-
ness. Thus, in this way, by contemplation of the life and
conduct of saints, whom it is certainly rarely granted us tc
meet with in our own experience, but who are brought be-
fore our eyes by their written history, and, with the stamp
of inner truth, by art, we must banish the dark impression
of that nothingness which we discern behind all virtue and
holiness as their final goal, and which we fear as children
fear the dark; we must not even evade it like the Indians,
through myths and meaningless words, such as reabsorption
in Brahma or the Nirvana of the Buddhists. Rather do we
freely acknowledge that what remains after the entire aboli-
tion of will is for all those who are still full of will cer-
tainly nothing; but, conversely, to those in whom the will
has turned and has denied itself, this our world, which is so
real, with all its suns and milky-ways — is nothing. ^

\

THE METAPHYSICS OF THE LOVE OF THE SEXES

•*Ye wise men, highly, deeply learned,
Who think it out and know,
How, when, and where do all things pair?
Why do they kiss and love?
Ye men of lofty wisdom, say
What happened to me then;
Search out and tell me where, how, when,
And why it happened thus."

— Burger.

This chapter is the last of four whose various reciprocal
relations, by virtue of which, to a certain extent, they con-^
stitute a subordinate whole, the attentive reader will recog-
nise without it being needful for me to interrupt my
exposition by recalling them or referring to them.

We are accustomed to see poets principally occupied with
describing the love of the sexes. This is as a rule the chief
theme of all dramatic works, tragical as well as comical,
romantic as well as classical, Indian as well as European.
Not less is it the material of by far the largest part of lyrical
and also of epic poetry, especially if we class with the latter
the enormous piles of romances which for centuries every
year has produced in all the civilised countries of Europe
as regularly as the fruits of the earth. As regards their main
contents, all these works are nothing else than many-sided
brief or lengthy descriptions of the passion we are speaking
of. Moreover, the most successful pictures of it — such, for
example, as Romeo and Juliet, La Nouvelle Keloiscy and
Werther — have gained immortal fame. Yet, when Roche-
foucauld imagines that it is the same with passionate love as
with ghosts, of which every one speaks, but which no one
has seen; and Lichtenberg also in his essay, "Ueber dtd

337

338 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

Macht der Liebcy' disputes and denies the reality and natu-
ralness of that passion, they are greatly in error. For it is im-
possible that something which is foreign and contrary to
human nature, thus a mere imaginary caricature, could be
unweariedly represented by poetic genius in all ages, and
received by mankind with unaltered interest; for nothing
that is artistically beautiful can be without truth: —

"Rein n'est beau que le vrai; le vrai seul est aimable."

— Boil.

Certainly, however, it is also confirmed by experience, al-
though not by the experience of every day, that that which
as a rule only appears as a strong yet still controllable in-
clination may rise under certain circumstances to a passion
which exceeds all others in vehemence, and which then sets
aside all considerations, overcomes all obstacles with in-
credible strength and perseverance, so that for its satisfac-
tion life is risked without hesitation, nay, if that satisfaction
is still withheld, is given as the price of it. Werthers and
Jacopo Ortis exist not only in romance, but every year can
6how at least half a dozen of them in Europe: Sed ignotis
ferierunt mortibus Hit; for their sorrows find no other
chroniclers than the writers of official registers or the re-
porters of the newspapers. Yet the readers of the police
news in English and French journals will attest the cor-
rectness of my assertion. Still greater, however, is the num-
ber of those whom the same passion brings to the madhouse.
Finally, every year can show cases of the double suicide of a
pair of lovers who are opposed by outward circumstances. In
such cases, Iiowever, it is inexplicable to me how those who,
certain of mutual love, expect to fi id the supremest bliss
in the enjoyment of this, do not withdraw themselves from
all connections by taking the extremest steps, and endure
all hardships, rather than give up with life a pleasure which
is greater than any other they can conceive. As regard?

METAPHYSICS OF LOVE OF SEXES 339

the lower grades of that passion, and the mere approaches
to it, every one has them daily before his eyes, and, as long
as he is not old, for the most part also in his heart.

So then, after what has been called to mind, no one can
doubt either the reality or the importance of the matter;
and therefore, instead of wondering that a philosophy
should also for once make its own this constant theme of all
poets, one ought rather to be surprised that a thing which
plays throughout so important a part in human life has
hitherto practically been disregarded by philosophers alto-
gether, and lies before us as raw material. The one who
has most concerned himself with it is Plato, especially in
the "Symposium" and the "Phasdrus." Yet what he says
on the subject is confined to the sphere of myths, fables,
and jokes, and also for the most part concerns only the
Greek love of youths. The little that Rousseau says upon
our theme in the ^^Discours sur VinegalhP^ (p. 96, ^d.
Bip.) is false and insufficient. Kant's explanation of the
subject in the third part of the essay, "Ueber das Gefilhl
des Schbnen und Erhabenen^^ (p. 435 seq. of Rosenkranz'
edition), is very superficial and without practical knowl-
edge, therefore it is also partly incorrect. Lastly, Platner's
treatment of the matter in his "Anthropology" (§ 1347
seq.) every one will find dull and shallow. On the other
hand, Spinoza's definition, on account of its excessive
naivete, deserves to be quoted for the sake of amusement'.
^^Amor est titillatioj concomhante idea causae externce {Eth.
iv., prop. 44, dem.). Accordingly I have no predecessor*
either to make use of or to refute. The subject has pressed
itself upon me objectively, and has entered of its own ac-
cord into the connection of my consideration of the world.
Moreover, least of all can I hope for approbation from
those who are themselves under the power of this passion,
and who accordingly seek to express the excess of their
feelings in the sublimest and most ethereal images. To

540 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

them my view will appear too physical, too material, how-
ever metaphysical and even transcendent it may be at bot-
tom. Meanwhile let them reflect that if the object which
to-day inspires them to write madrigals and sonnets had
been born eighteen years earlier it would scarcely have won
a glance from them.

For all love, however ethereally it may bear itself, is
rooted in the sexual impulse alone, nay, it absolutely is
only a more definitely determined, specialised, and indeed
in the strictest sense individualised sexual impulse. If now,
keeping this in view, one considers the important part which
the sexual impulse in all its degrees and nuances plays not
only on the stage and in novels, but also in the real world,
where, next to the love of life, it shows itself the strongest
and most powerful of motives, constantly lays claim to
half the powers and thoughts of the younger portion of
mankind, is the ultimate goal of almost all human effort,
exerts an adverse influence on the most important events,
interrupts the most serious occupations every hour, some-
times embarrasses for a while even the greatest minds, does
;iot hesitate to intrude with its trash interfering with the
negotiations of statesmen and the investigations of men of
learning, knows how to slip its love letters and locks of hair
even into ministerial portfolios and philosophical manu-
scripts, and no less devises daily the most entangled and
the worst actions, destroys the most valuable relationships,
breaks the firmest bonds, demands the sacrifice sometimes
of life or health, sometimes of wealth, rank, and happi-
ness, nay, robs those who are otherwise honest of all con-
science, makes those who have hitherto been faithful,
traitors; accordingly, on the whole, appears as a malevolent
demon that strives to pervert, confuse, and overthrow every-
thing;— then one will be forced to cry, Wherefore all this
noise? Wherefore the straining and storming, the anxiety
and want? It is merely a question of every Hans finding

METAPHYSICS OF LOVE OF SEXES 341

his Grethe/ Why should such a trifle play so important
a part, and constantly introduce disturbance and confusion
into the well-regulated life of man? But to the earnest in-
vestigator the spirit of truth gradually reveals the answer.
It is no trifle that is in question here; on the contrary, the
importance of the matter is quite proportionate to the seri-
ousness and ardour of the effort. The ultimate end of all
love affairs, whether they are played in sock or cothurnus, is
really more important than all other ends of human life,
and is therefore quite worthy of the profound seriousness
with which every one pursues it. That which is decided by it
is nothing less than the composition of the next generation.
The dramatis 'personce who shall appear when we are with-
drawn are here determined, both as regards their existence
and their nature, by these frivolous love affairs. As the be-
ing, the existentiay of these future persons is absolutely con-
ditioned by our sexual impulse generally, so their nature,
essentia^ is determined by the individual selection in its
satisfaction, i.e.y by sexual love, and is in every respect irre-
vocably fixed by this. This is the key of the problem: we
shall arrive at a more accurate knowledge of it in its applica-
tion if we go through the degrees of love, from the passing
inclination to the vehement passion, when we shall also
recognise that the difference of these grades arises from the
degree of the individualisation of the choice.

The collective love affairs of the present generation
taken together are accordingly, of the whole human race,
the serious mcditatio comfositionis generationis futuroey e
qua iterum fendent innumerce generationes. This high im«
portance of the matter, in which it is not a question of in-
dividual weal or woe, as in all other matters, but of the
existence and special nature of the human race in future

^ I have not ventured to express myself distinctly here: thij
courteous reader must therefore translate the phrase into Aristo-
phanic language.

342 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER n

times, and therefore the will of the individual appears at a
higher power as the will of the species; — this it is on which
the pathetic and sublime elements in affairs of love depend,
'vvhich for thousands of years poets have never wearied of
representing in innumerable examples; because no theme
can equal in interest this one, which stands to all others
which only concern the welfare of individuals as the solid
body to the surface, because it concerns the weal and woe of
the species. Just on this account, then, is it so difficult to im-
part interest to a drama without the element of love, and,
on the other hand, this theme is never worn out even by
daily use.

That which presents itself in the individual consciousness
as sexual impulse in general, without being directed towards
a definite individual of the other sex, is in itself, and apart
from ^he phenomenon, simply the will to live. But what
appears in consciousness as a sexual impulse directed to a
definite individual is in itself the will to live as a definitely
determined individual. Now in this case the sexual impulse,
although in itself a subjective need, knows how to assume
very skilfully the mask of an objective admiration, and thus
to deceive our consciousness; for nature requires this strata-
gem to attain its ends. But yet that in every case of falling
in loA'e, however objective and sublime this admiration may
appear, what alone is looked to in the production of an indi-
ddual of a definite nature is primarily confirmed by the
fact that the essential matter is not the reciprocation of love,
but possession, i.e., the physical enjoyment. The certainty of
the former can therefore by no means console us for the
want of the latter; on the contrary, in such a situation many
d man has shot himself. On the other hand, persons who are
deeply in love, and can obtain no return of it, are contented
with possession, i.e., with the physical enjoyment. This is
proved by all forced marriages, and also by the frequent
purchase of the favour of a woman, in spite of her dislike.

METAPHYSICS OF LOVE OF SEXES 343

by large presents or other sacrifices, nay, even by cases of
rape. That this particular child shall be begotten is, although
unknown to the parties concerned, the true end of the whole
love story; the manner in which it is attained is a secondary
consideration. Now, however loudly persons of lofty and
sentimental soul, and especially those who are in love, may
cry out here about the gross realism of my view, they are yet
in error. For is not the definite determination of the in^
dividualities of the next generation a much higher and more
worthy end than those exuberant feelings and supersensible
soap bubbles of theirs? Nay, among earthly aims, can there
be one which is greater or more important? It alone corre-
sponds to the profoundness with which passionate love is
felt, to the seriousness with which it appears, and the im-
portance which it at*-ributes even to the trifling details of its
sphere and occasion. Only so far as this end is assumed as
the true one do the diflSculties encountered, the infinite exer**
tions and annoyances made and endured for the attainment
of the loved object, appear proportionate to the matter. For
it is the future generation, in its whole individual deter-
minateness, that presses into existence by means of those
efforts and toils. Nay, it is itself already active in that care-
ful, definite, and arbitrary choice for the satisfaction of the
sexual impulse which we call love. The growing inclination
of two lovers is really already the will to live of the new
individual which they can and desire to produce; nay, even
in the meeting of their longing glances its new life breaks
out, and announces itself as a future individuality harmoni-
ously and well composed. They feel the longing for an
actual union and fusing together into a single being, in or-
der to live on only as this; and this longing receives its ful-
filment in the child which is produced by them, as that in
which the qualities transmitted by them both, fused and
united in one being, live on. Conversely, the mutual, de-
cided, and persistent aversion between a man and a maid is a

344 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

sign that what they could produce would only be a badly
organised, in itself inharmonious and unhappy being. Hence
there lies a deeper meaning in the fact that Calderon,
though he calls the atrocious Semiramis the daughter of the
air, yet introduces her as the daughter of rape followed by
the murder of the husband.

But, finally, what draws two individuals of different sex
exclusively to each other with such power is the will to live,
which exhibits itself in the whole species, and which here
anticipates in the individual which these two can produce
an objectification of its nature answering to its aims. This
individual will have the will, or character, from the fatlier,
the intellect from the mother, and the corporisation from
both; yet, for the most part, the figure will take more after
the father, the size after the mother, — according to the law
which comes out in the breeding of hybrids among the
brutes, and principally depends upon the fact that the size
of the foetus must conform to the size of the uterus. Just
as inexplicable as the quite special individuality of any man,
which is exclrsively peculiar to him, is also the quite special
and individual passion of two lovers; indeed at bottom the
two are one and the same: the former is exfltcite what the
latter was imfUcite. The moment at which the parents begin
to love each other — to fancy each other, as the very happy
English expression has it — is really to be regarded as the
first appearance of a new individual and the true functum
\aliens of its life, and, as has been said, in the meeting and
fixing of their longing glances there appears the first germ
of the new being, which certainly, like all germs, is gener-
ally crushed out. This new individual is to a certain extent
a new (Platonic) Idea; and now, as all Ideas strive with the
greatest vehemence to enter the phenomenal world, eagerly
seizing for this end upon the matter which the law of cau-
sality divides among them all, so also does this particular
Idea of a. human individuality strive with the greatest eager-

METAPHYSICS OF LOVE OF SEXES 345

jiess and vehemence towards its realisation in the phenom-
enon. This eagerness and vehemence is just the passion of
the two future parents for each other. It has innumerable
degrees, the two extremes of which may at any rate be de-
scribed as Aq?QoSiTr] navdrjjuog and ovqavia-^ in its nature,
however, it is everywhere the same. On the other hand, it
will be in degree so much the more powerful the more m-:
dividualised it is; that is, the more the loved individual is
exclusively suited, by virtue of all his or her parts and quali-
ties, to satisfy the desire of the lover and the need established
by his or her own individuality. What is really in question
here will become clear in the further course of our exposi-
tion. Primarily and essentially the inclination of love is
directed to health, strength, and beauty, consequently also to
youth; because the will first of all seeks to exhibit the spe-
cific character of the human species as the basis of all indi-
viduality: ordinary amorousness (AcpQoSur] navdrjfiog) does
not go much further. To these, then, more special claims
link themselves on, which we shall investigate in detail fur-
ther on, and with which, when they see satisfaction before
them, the passion increases. But the highest degrees of this
passion spring from that suitableness of two individualities
to each other on account of which the will, /.<?., the char-
acter, of the father and the intellect of the mother, in their
connection, make up precisely that individual towards which
the will to live in general which exhibits itself in the whole
species feels a longing proportionate to thii. its magnitude,
and which therefore exceeds the measure of a mortal heart,
and the motives of which, in the same way, lie beyond the
sphere of the individual intellect. This is thus the soul of a
true and great passion. Now the more perfect is the mutual
adaptation of two individuals to each other in each of the
many respects which have further to be considered, the
stronger will be their mutual passion. Since there do not
exist two individuals exactly alike, there must be for ead^'

346 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

particular man a particular woman — always with reference
to what is to be produced — who corresponds most perfectly.
A really passionate love is as rare as the accident of these
two meeting. Since, however, the possibility of such a love
is present in every one, the representations of it in the works
of the poets are comprehensible to us. Just because the pas-
sion of love really turns about that which is to be produced,
and its qualities, and because its kernel lies here, a friend-
ship without any admixture of sexual love can exist between
two young and good-looking persons of different sex, on
account of the agreement of their disposition, character, and
mental tendencies; nay, as regards sexual love there may
even be a certain aversion between them. The reason of this
is to be sought in the fact that a child produced by them
would have physical o/ mental qualities which were inhar-
monious; in short, its existence and nature would not an-
swer the ends of the will to live as it exhibits itself in the
species. On the other hand, in the case of difference of dis-
position, character, and mental tendency, and the dislike,
nay, enmity, proceeding from this, sexual love may yet arise
and exist; when it then blinds us to all that; and if it here
leads to marriage it will be a very unhappy one.

Let us now set about the more thorough investigation of
the matter. Egoism is so deeply rooted a quality of all in-
dividuals in general, that in order to rouse the activity of an
individual being egoistical ends are the only ones upon
which we can count with certainty. Certainly the species has
rn earlier, closer, and greater claim upon the individual
than the perishable individuality itself. Yet when the indi-
vidual has to act, and even make sacrifices for the continu-
ince and quality of the species, the importance of the matter
jannot be made so comprehensible to his intellect, which is
calculated merely with regard to individual ends, as to have
its proportionate effect. Therefore in such a case nature can
pnly attain its ends by implanting a certain illusion in the

METAPHYSICS OF LOVE OF SEXES 347

individual, on account of which that which is only a good
for the species appears to him as a good for himself, so that
when he serves the species he imagines he is serving himself;
in which process a mere chimera, which vanishes imme-
diately afterwards, floats before him, and takes the place of
a real thing as a motive. This illusion is instinct. In the great
majority of cases this is to be regarded as the ,ense of the
species, which presents what is of benefit to it to the will.
Since, however, the will has here become individual, it must
be so deluded that it apprehends through the sense of the in-
dividual what the sense of the species presents to it, thus
imagines it is following individual ends while in truth it is
pursuing ends which are merely general (taking this word
in its strictest sense). The external phenomenon of instinct
we can best observe in the brutes where its role is most im-
portant; but it is in ourselves alone that we arrive at a
knowledge of its internal process, as of everything internal.
Now it is certainly supposed that man has almost no in-
stinct; at any rate only this, that the new-born babe seeks
for and seizes the breast of its mother. But, in fact, we have
a very definite, distinct, and complicated instinct, that of
the selection of another individual for the satisfaction of the
sexual Impulse, a selection which is so fine, so serious, and
so arbitrary. With this satisfaction in itself, i.e., so far as it
is a sensual pleasure resting upon a pressing want of the in-
dividual, the beauty or ugliness of the other individual has
nothing to do. Thus the regard for this which is yet pursued
with such ardour, together with the careful selection which
springs from it, is evidently connected, not with the chooser
himself — although he imagines it is so — but with the true
end, that which is to be produced, which is to receive the
type of the species as purely and correctly as possible.
Through a thousand physical accidents and moral aberra*
tions there arise a great variety of deteriorations of the
human form; yet its true type, in all its p^wts, is alwayt.

348 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

Again established: and this takes place under the guidance of
ihe sense of beauty, which always directs the sexual impulse,
jind without which this sinks to the level of a disgusting-
necessity. Accordingly, in the first place, every one will de-
cidedly prefer and eagerly desire the most beautiful indi-
viduals, i.e., those in whom the character of the species is
most purely impressed; but, secondly, each one will specially
/egard as beautiful in another individual those perfections^
which he himself lacks, nay, even those imperfections which
are the opposite of his own. Hence, for example, little men
love big women, fair persons like dark, &c. &c. The delusive
ecstasy which seizes a man at the sight of a woman whose
beauty is suited to him, and pictures to him a union with her
AS the highest good, is just the sense of the sfecies, which^
recognising the distinctly expressed stamp of the same, de-
sires to perpetuate it with this individual. Upon this decided
inclination to beauty depends the maintenance of the type
of the species: hence it acts with such great power. We shall
examine specially further on the considerations which it
follows. Thus what guides man here is really an instinct
which is directed to doing the best for the species, while the
man himself imagines that he only seeks the heightening of
his own pleasure. In fact, we have in this an instructive les-
son concerning the inner nature of all instinct, which, as
here, almost always sets the individual in motion for the
good of the species. For clearly the pains with which an in-
sect seeks out a particular flower, or fruit, or dung, or flesh,
or, as in the case of the ichneumonidas, the larva of another
insect, in order to deposit its eggs there only, and to attain
this end shrinks neither from trouble nor danger, is thor-
oughly analogous to the pains with which for his sexual
satisfaction a man carefully chooses a woman with definite
qualities which appeal to him individually, and strives so
eagerly after her that in order to attain this end he often
sacrifices his own happiness in life, contrary to all reason, by

METAPHYSICS OF LOVE OF SEXES 349

a foolish marriage, by love affairs which cost him wealth,
honour, and life, even by crimes such as adultery or rape,
ill merely in order to serve the species in the most efficient
way, although at the cost of the individual, in accordance
with the will of nature which is everywhere sovereign. In-
stinct, in fact, is always an act which seems to be in accord-
ance with the conception of an end, and yet is entirely
without such a conception. Nature implants it wherever the
acting individual is incapable of understanding the end, or
would be unwilling to pursue it. Therefore, as a rule, it is
given only to the brutes, and indeed especially to the lowest
of them which have least understanding; but almost only in
the case we are here considering it is also given to man, who
certainly could understand the end, but would not pursue if
with the necessary ardour, that is, even at the expense of his
individual welfare. Thus here, as in the case of all instinct),
the truth assumes the form of an illusion, in order to acf
upon the will. It is a voluptuous illusion which leads the
man to believe he will find a greater pleasure in the arm?
of a woman whose beauty appeals to him than in those 0/
any other; or which indeed, exclusively directed to a single
individual, firmly convinces him that the possession of hef^
v/ill ensure him excessive happiness. Therefore he imagine*
he is taking trouble and making sacrifices for his own pleas'
ure, while he does so merely for the maintenance of thf
regular type of the species, or else a quite special individu'
iiity, which can only come from these parents, is to attain
to existence. The character of instinct is here so perfectl)
present, thus an action which seems to be in accordance with
the conception of an end, and yet is entirely without such i^
conception, that he who is drawn by that illusion often ab-
hors the end which alone guides it, procreation, and would
like to hinder it; thus it is in the case of almost all illicit
love affairs. In accordance with the character of the mattej<
which has been explained, every lover will experience fl

350 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER .

marvellous disillusion after the pleasure he has at last at-
tained, and will wonder that what was so longingly desired
accomplishes nothing more than every other sexual satisfac-
tion; so that he does not see himself much benefited by it.
That wish was related to all his other wishes as the species
is related to the individual, thus as the infinite to the finite.
The satisfaction, on the other hand, is really only for the
benefit of the species, and thus does not come within the
consciousness of the individual, who, inspired by the will of
the species, here served an end with every kind of sacrifice,
which was not his own end at all. Hence, then, every lover,
after the ultimate consummation of the great work, finds
himself cheated; for the illusion has vanished by means of
which the individual was here the dupe of the species. Ac-
cordingly Plato very happily says: "tjSovt] anavicov aXa^o-
reoiazov" (^voLuftas omnium m,axim,e vaniloqua), Phileb.

319-

But all this reflects light on the instincts and mechanical

tendencies of the brutes. They also are, without doubt, in-
volved in a kind of illusion, which deceives them with the
prospect of their own pleasure, while they work so labori-
ously and with so much self-denial for the species, the bird
builds its nest, the insect seeks the only suitable place for its
eggs, or even hunts for prey which, unsuited for its own
enjoyment, must be laid beside the eggs as food for the fu-
ture larvae, the bees, the wasps, the ants apply themselves to
their skilful dwellings and highly complicated economy.
They are all guided with certainty by an illusion, which
conceals the service of the species under the mask of an
egotistical end. This is probably the only way to comprehend
the inner or subjective process that lies at the foundation of
the manifestations of instinct. Outwardly, however, or ob-
jectively, we find in those creatures which are to a large
•extent governed by instinct, especially in insects, a prepon-
derance of the ganglion system, i.e.y the subjective nervous

METAPHYSICS OF LOVE OF SEXES 351

system, over the objective or cerebral system; from w^hich
we must conclude that they are moved, not so much by ob-
jective, proper apprehension as by subjective ideas exciting
desire, which arise from the influence of the ganglion sys-
tem upon the brain, and accordingly by a kind of illusion;
and this will be the fhysiologkal process in the case of all
instinct. For the sake of illustration I will mention as an-
other example of instinct in the human species, although a
weak one, the capricious appetite of women who are preg-
nant. It seems to arise from the fact that the nourishment
of the embryo sometimes requires a special or definite modi-
fication of the blood which flows to it, upon which the food
which produces such a modification at once presents itself
to the pregnant woman as an object of ardent longing, thus
here also an illusion arises. Accordingly woman has one in-
stinct more than man; and the ganglion system is also much
more developed in the woman. That man has fewer in-
stincts than the brutes and that even these few can be easily
led astray, may be explained from the great preponderance
of the brain in his case. The sense of beauty which instinc-
tively guides the selection for the satisfaction of sexual
passion is led astray when it degenerates into the tendency
to pederasty; analogous to the fact that the blue-bottle
{Musca vo7nitoria)j instead of depositing its eggs, according
to instinct, in putrefying flesh, lays them in the blossom of
the Arum dracunculuSy deceived by the cadaverous smell of
this plant.

Now that an instinct entirely directed to that which is to
be produced lies at the foundation of all r>exual love will
receive complete confirmation from the f uller analysis of it,
which we cannot therefore avoid. 1^'irst of all we have to
remark here that by nature man is incl/'ned to inconstancy
in love, woman to constancy. The love of the man sinks
perceptibly from the moment it has obtained satisfaction;
almost every other woman charms him more than the one

352 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

he already possesses; he longs for variety. The love of the
woman, on the other hand, increases just from that mo-
ment. This is a consequence of the aim of nature which is
directed to the maintenance, and therefore to the greatest
possible increase, of the species. The man can easily beget
over a hundred children a year; the woman, on the con-
trary, with however many men, can yet only bring one child
a year into the world (leaving twin births out of account).
Therefore the man always looks about after other women;
the woman, again, sticks firmly to the one man; for nature
moves her, instinctively and without reflection, to retain the
nourisher and protector of the future offspring. Accord-
ingly faithfulness in marriage is with the man artificial,
with the woman it is natural, and thus adultery on the part
of the woman is much less pardonable than on the part of
the man, both objectively on account of the consequences
and £:lso suHJectively on account of its unnaturalness.

But in Older to be thorough and gain full conviction that
ihe pleasure in the other sex, however objective it may seem
to us, is yet merely disguised instinct, i.e.y sense of the
species, which strives to maintain its type, we must investi-
gate more fully the considerations which guide us in this
J)leasure, and enter into the details of this, rarely as these
details which will have to be mentioned here may Have
figured in a philosophical work before. These considerations
divide themselves into those which directly concern the type
of the species, i.e.y beauty, those which are concerned with
physical qualities, and lastly, those which are merely rela-
tive, which arise from the requisite correction or neutralisa-
tion of the one-sided qualities and abnormities of the two
individuals by each other. We shall aro through them one
by one.

The first consideration which guides our choice and in-
clination is age. In general we accept the age from the years
when menstruation begins to those when it ceases, yet we

METAPHYSICS OF LOVE OF SEXES 353

give the decided preference to the period from the eight-
eenth to the twenty-eighth year. Outside of those years, on
the other hand, no woman can attract us: an old woman,
i.e., one who no longer menstruates, excites our aversion.
Youth without beauty has still always attraction; beauty
without youth has none. Clearly the unconscious end which
guides us here is the possibility of reproduction in general:
therefore every individual loses attraction for the opposite
sex in proportion as he or she is removed from the fittest
period for begetting or conceiving. The second considera-
tion is that of health. Acute diseases, only temporarily dis-
turb us, chronic diseases or cachexia repel us, because they
are transmitted to the child. The third consideration is the
skeleton, because it is the basis of the type of the species.
Next to age and disease nothing repels us so much as a de-
formed figure; even the most beautiful face cannot atone
for it; on the contrary, even the ugliest face when accom-
panied by a straight figure is unquestionably preferred.
Further, we feel every disproportion of the skeleton most
strongly; for example, a stunted, dumpy, short-boned fig-
ure, and many such; also a halting gait, where it is not the
result of an extraneous accident. On the other hand, a strik-
ingly beautiful figure can make up for all defects: it en-
chants us. Here also comes in the great value which all
attach to the smallness of the feet: it depends upon the fact
that they are an essential characteristic of the species, for no
animal has the tarsus and the metatarsus taken together so
small as man, which accords with his upright walk; he is a
plantigrade. Accordingly Jesus Sirach also says (xxvi. 23,
according to the revised translation by Kraus) : "A woman
with a straight figure and beautiful feet is like columns of
gold in sockets of silver." The teeth also are important; be-
cause they are essential for nourishment and quite specially
hereditary. The fourth consideration is a certain fulness of
flesh; thus a predominance of the vegetative function, of

354 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

plasticity; because this promises abundant nourishment for
the foetus; hence great leanness repels us in a striking de-
gree. A full female bosom exerts an exceptional charm upon
the male sex; because, standing in direct connection with
the female functions of propagation, it promises abundant
nourishment to the new-born child. On the other hand, ex-
cessively fat women excite our disgust: the cause is that
this indicates atrophy of the uterus, thus barrenness; which
is not known by the head, but by instinct. The last consid-
eration of all is the beauty of the face. Here also before
everything else the bones are considered; therefore we look
principally for a beautiful nose, and a short turned-up nose
spoils everything. A slight inclination of the nose down-
wards or upwards has decided the happiness in life of in-
numerable maidens, and rightly so, for it concerns the type
of the specits. A small mouth, by means of small maxillae,
is very essential as specifically characteristic of the human
countenance, as distinguished from the muzzle of th";
brutes. A receding or, as it were, cut-away chin is especially
disagreeable, because mentum fromtnulum is an exclusive
characteristic of our species. Finally comes the regard for
beautiful eyes and forehead; it is connected with the psy-
chical qualities, especially the intellectual which are inherited
from the mother.

The unconscious considerations which, on the other
hand, the inclination of women follows naturally cannot be
50 exactly assigned. In general the following may be as-
iierted: They give the preference to the age from thirty to
thirty-five years, especially over that of youths who yet really
present the height of human beauty. The reason is that they
Rre not guided by taste but by instinct, which recognises in
the age named the acme of reproductive power. In general
they look less to beauty, especially of the face. It is as if
they took it upon themselves alone to impart this to the
child. They are principally won by the strength of the man,

METAPHYSICS OF LOVE OF SEXES 355

and the courage which is connected with this; for these
promise the production of stronger children, and also a
brave protector for them. Every physical defect of the man,
every divergence from the type, may with regard to the
child be removed by the woman in reproduction, through
the fact that she herself is blameless in these respects, or
even exceeds in the opposite direction. Only those qualities
of the man have to be excepted which are peculiar to his
sex, and which therefore the mother cannot give to the
child: such are the manly structure of the skeleton, broad
shoulders, slender hips, straight bones, muscular power,
courage, beard, &c. Hence it arises that women often love
ugly men, but never an unmanly man, because they cannot
neutralise his defects.

The second class of the considerations which lie at the
foundation of sexual love are those which regard psychical
qualities. Here we shall find that the woman is throughout
attracted by the qualities of the heart or character in the
man, as those which are inherited from the father. The
woman is won especially by firmness of will, decision, and
courage, and perhaps also by honesty and good-heartedness
On the other hand, intellectual gifts exercise no direct and
instinctive power over her, just because they are not in-
herited from the father. Want of understanding does a
man no harm with women; indeed extraordinary mental
endownment, or even genius, might sooner influence them
unfavourably as an abnormity. Hence one often sees an
ugly, stupid, and coarse fellow get the better of a cultured,
able, and amiable man with women. Also marriages from
love are sometimes consummated between natures which are
mentally very different: for example, the man is rough,
powerful, and stupid; the woman tenderly sensitive, deli-
cately thoughtful, cultured, aesthetic, &c.; or the man is a
genius and learned, the woman a goose:

356 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

"Sic visum Veneri; cui placet impares
Formas at que animos sub juga a'enea
Saevo mittere cum joco."

The reason is, that here quite other considerations than
the intellectual predominate, — those of instinct. In mar-
riage what is looked to is not intellectual entertainment,
but the production of children: it is a bond of the heart, not
of the head. It is a vain and absurd pretence when women
assert that they have fallen in love with the mind of a man,
or else it is the over-straining of a degenerate nature. Men,
on the other hand, are not determined in their instinctive
love by the qualities of character of the woman; hence so
many Socrateses have found their Xantippes; for example,
Shakespeare, Albrecht Diirer, Byron, &c. The intellectual
qualities, however, certainly influence here, because they
are inherited from the mother. Yet their influence is easily
outweighed by that of physical beauty, which acts directly,
as concerning a more essential point. However, it happens,
either from the feeling or the experience of that influence,
that mothers have their daughters taught the fine arts, lan-
guages, and so forth in order to make them attractive to
men, whereby they wish to assist the intellect by artificial
means, just as, in case of need, they assist the hips and the
bosom. Observe that here we are speaking throughout only
of that entirely immediate instinctive attraction from which
jlone love properly so called grows. That a woman of cul-
ture and understanding prizes understanding and intellect
in a man, that a man from rational reflection should test and
have regard to the character of his bride, has nothing to do
with the matter with which we are dealing here. Such
things lie at the bottom of a rational choice in marriage, but
not of the passionate love, which is our theme.

Hitherto I have only taken account of the absolute con*
siderations, t.e.y those which hold good for every one: I
come now to the relative considerations, which are indi-

METAPHYSICS OF LOVE OF SEXES 357

Tidual, because in their case what is looked to is the rectifi-
cation of the type of the species, which is already defectively
presented, the correction of the divergences from it which
the chooser's own person already bears in itself, and thus
the return to the pure presentation of the type. Here, then,
each one lov^es what he lacks. Starting from the individual
constitution, and directed to the individual constitution, the
choice which rests upon such relative considerations is much
more definite, decided, and exclusive than that which pro-
ceeds merely from the absolute considerations; therefore
the source of really passionate love will lie, as a rule, in
these relative considerations, and only that of the ordinary
and slighter inclination in the absolute considerations. Ac-
cordingly it is not generally precisely correct and perfect
beauties that kindle great passions. For such a truly pas-
sionate inclination to arise something is required which can
only be expressed by a chemical metaphor: two persons must
neutralise each other, like acid and alkali, to a neutral salt.
The essential conditions demanded for this are the follow
ing. First: all sex is one-sided. This one-sidedness is more
distinctly expressed in one individual than in another; there-
fore in every individual it can be better supplemented and
neutralised by one than by another individual of the op-
posite sex, for each one requires a one-sidedness which is the
opposite of his own to complete the type of humanity in the
new individual that is to be produced, the constitution of
which is always the goal towards which all tends. Physiolo'
gists know that manhood and womanhood admit of in-
numerable degrees, thiough which the former sinks to the
repulsive gynander and hypospadasus, and the latter rises to
the graceful androgyne; from both sides complete hermaph-
rodism can be reached, at which point stand those indi*
viduals who, holding the exact mean between the two sexes^
can be attributed to neither, and consequently are unfit to
propagate the soecies. Accordingly, the neutralisation 0/

358 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

two individualities by each other, of which we are speaking",
iemands that the definite degree of his manhood shall ex~
ACtly correspond to the definite degree of her womanhood;
so that the one-sidedness of each exactly annuls that of the'
other. Accordingly, the most manly man will seek the most
womanly woman, and vice versay and in the same way
every individual will seek another corresponding to him or
her in degree of sex. Now how far the required relation
exists between two individuals is instinctively felt by them,
and, together with the other relative considerations, lies at
the foundation of the higher degrees of love. While, there-
fore, the lovers speak pathetically of the harmony of their
souls, the heart of the matter is for the most part the agree-
ment or suitableness pointed out here with reference to the
being which is to be produced and its perfection, and which
is also clearly of much more importance than the harmony
of their souls, which often, not long after the marriage, re-
solves itself into a howling discord. Now, here come in the
further relative considerations, which depend upon the fact
that every one endeavours to neutralise by means of the
other his weaknesses, defects, and deviations from the type,
so that they will not perpetuate themselves, or even develop
into complete abnormities in the child which is to be pro-
duced. The weaker a man is as regards muscular power the
more will he seek for strong women; and the woman on
her side will do the same. But since now a less degree of
muscular power is natural and regular in the woman,
women as a rule will give the preference to strong men.
Further, the size is an important consideration. Little men
have a decided inclination for big women, and vice versa;
'ind indeed in a little man the preference for big women
"will be so much the more passionate if he himself was be-
gotten by a big father, and only remains little through the
influence of his mother; because he has inherited from his
father the vascular system and its energy, which was able

METAPHYSICS OF LOVE OF SEXEf. 359

to supply a large body with blood. If, on the other hand, his
father and grandfather were both little, that inclination
will make itself less felt. At the foundation of the aversion
of a big woman to big men lies the intention of nature to
avoid too big a race, if with the strength which this woman
could impart to them they would be too weak to live long.
If, however, such a woman selects a big husband, perhaps
for the sake of being more presentable in society, then, as a
rule, her offspring will have to atone for her folly. Fur*
ther, the consideration as to the complexion is very decided.
Blondes prefer dark persons, or brunettes; but the latter
seldom prefer the former. The reason is, that fair hair and
blue eyes are in themselves a variation from the type, almost
an abnormity, analogous to white mice, or at least to grey
horses. In no part of the world, not even in the vicinity of
the pole, are they indigenous, except in Europe, and arc?
clearly of Scandinavian origin. I may here express my
opinion in passing that the white colour of the skin is not
natural to man, but that by nature he has a black or brown
skin, like our forefathers the Hindus; that consequently a
white man has never originally sprung from the womb of
nature, and that thus there is no such thing as a white race,
much as this is talked of, but every white man is a faded or
bleached one. Forced into the strange world, where he only
exists like an exotic plant, and like this requires in winter
the hothouse, in the course of thousands of years man be-
came white. The gipsies, an Indian race which immigrated
only about four centuries ago, show the transition from the
complexion of the Hindu to our own.^ Therefore in sexual
love nature strives to return to dark hair and brown eyes as
the primitive type; but the white colour of the skin has be-
come a second nature, though not so that the brown of the
Hindu repels us. Finally, each one also seeks in the particu*

1 The fuller discussion of this subject will be found in the "Pareiga,*
VoL ii. § 92 of the first edition (second edition, pp. 167-1/0).

36o THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

lar parts of the body the corrective of his own defects and
aberrations, and does so the more decidedly the more im-
portant the part is. Therefore snub-nosed individuals have
an inexpressible liking for hook-noses, parrot-faces; and it
is the same with regard to all other parts. Men with exces-
sively slim, long bodies and limbs can find beauty in a body
which is even beyond measure stumpy and short. The con-
siderations with regard to temperament act in an analogous
mmner. Each will prefer the temperament opposed to his
Qv/n ; yet only in proportion as his own is decided. Whoever
is himself in some respect very perfect does not inaeed seek
and love imperfection in this respect, but is yet more easily
reconciled to it than others; because he himself insures the
children against great imperfection of this part. For ex-
ample, whoever is himself very white will not object to a
yellow complexion; but whoever has the latter will find
dazzling whiteness divinely beautiful. The rare case in
which a man falls in love with a decidedly ugly woman
occurs when, besides the exact harmony of the degree of sex
explained above, the whole of her abnormities are precisely
the opposite, and thus the corrective, of his. The love is then
wont to reach a high degree.

The profound seriousness with which we consider and
ponder each bodily part of the woman, and she on her part
does the same, the critical scrupulosity with which we in-
spect a woman who begins to please us, the capriciousness of
our choice, the keen attention with which the bridegroom
vobserves his betrothed, his carefulness not to be deceived in
any part, and the great value which he attaches to every ex-
cess or defect in the essential parts, all this is quite in keeping
with the importance of the end. For the new being to be
produced will have to bear through its whole life a similar
part. For example, if the woman is only a little crooked,
this may easily impart to her son a hump, and so in all the
rest. Consciousness of all this certainly does not exist. On

METAPHYSICS OF LOVE OF SEXES 361

the contrary, every one imagines that he makes that careful
selection in the interest of his own pleasure (which at bot-
tom cannot be interested in it at all) ; but he makes it pre-
cisely as, under the presupposition of his own corporisation,
is most in keeping with the interest of the species, to main-
tain the type of which as pure as possible is the secret task.
The individual acts here, without knowing it, by order of
something higher than itself, the species; hence the im-.
portance which it attaches to things which may and indeed
must be, indifferent to itself as such. There is something
quite peculiar in the profound unconscious seriousness with
v/hich two young persons of opposite sex who see each other
for the first time regard each other, in the searching and
penetrating glance they cast at one another, in the careful
review which all the features and parts of their respectivri
persons have to endure. This investigating and examining
is the meditation of the genius of the sfecies on the indi*
vidual which is possible through these two and the com-
bination of its qualities. According to the result of this
meditation is the degree of their pleasure in each other an<J
this yearning for each other. This yearning, even after it
has attained a considerable degree, may be suddenly ex-
tinguished again by the discovery of something that had
previously remained unobserved. In this way, then, the
genius of the species meditates concerning the coming race
in all who are capable of reproduction. The nature of this
race is the great work with which Cupid is occupied, unceas-
ingly active, speculating, and pondering. In comparison
with the importance of his great affair, which concerns the
species and all coming races, the affairs of individuals in
their whole ephemeral totality are very trifling; therefore ha
is always ready to sacrifice these regardlessly. For he is re-
lated to them as an immortal to mortals, and his interests
to theirs as infinite to finite. Thus, in the consciousness of
managing affairs of a higher kind than all those which only

MamJd Doud EfMnhower
Public Lfbrarv

362 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

concern individual weal or woe, he carries them on su-
blimely, undisturbed in the midst of the tumult of war, or
In the bustle of business life, or during the raging of a
plague, and pursues them even into the seclusion of the
cloister.

We have seen in the above that the intensity of love in-
creases with its individualisation, because we have shown
that the physical qualities of two individuals can be such
that, for the purpose of restoring as far as possible the type
of the species, the one is quite specially and perfectly the
completion or supplement of the other, which therefore de-
sires it exclusively. Already in this case a considerable pas-
sion arises, which at once gains a nobler and more sublime
appearance from the fact that it is directed to an individual
object, and to it alone; thus, as it were, arises at the special
order of the species. For the opposite reason, the mere sexual
impulse is ignoble, because without individualisation it is
directed to all, and strives to maintain the species only as
regards quantity, with little respect to quality. But the in-
dividualising, and with it the intensity of the love, can reach
so high a degree that without its satisfaction all the good
things in the world, and even life itself, lose their value. It
is then a wish which attains a vehemence that no other wish
ever reaches, and therefore makes one ready for any sacri-
fice, and in case its fulfilment remains unalterably denied,
may lead to madness or suicide. At the foundation of such
an excessive passion there must lie, besides the considerations
y/e have shown above, still others which we have not thus
before our eyes. We must therefore assume that here not
only the corporisation, but the will of the man and the in-
tellect of the woman are specially suitable to each other, in
consequence of which a perfectly definite individual can be
produced by them alone, whose existence the genius of the
species has here in view, for reasons which are inaccessible
to us, since they lie in the nature of the thing-in-itself. Or,

METAPHYSICS OF LOVE OF SEXES 363

to speak more exactly, the will to live desires here to ob-
jectify itself in a perfectly definite individual, which can
only be produced by this father with this mother. This meta-
physical desire of the will in itself has primarily no othel
sphere of action in the series of existences than the hearts oi
the future parents, which accordingly are seized with this
ardent longing, and now imagine themselves to desire on
their own account what really for the present has only »
purely metaphysical end, i.e., an end which lies outside the
series of actually existing things. Thus it is the ardent long-
ing to enter existence of the future individual which has
first become possible here, a longing which proceeds from
the primary source of all being, and exhibits itself in th€
phenomenonal world as the lofty passion of the future
parents for each other, paying little regard to all that is out*
side itself; in fact, as an unparalleled illusion, on account
of which such a lover would give up all the good things of
this world to enjoy the possession of this woman, who yet
can really give him nothing more than any other. That yet
it is just this possession that is kept in view here is seen from
the fact that even this lofty passion, like all others, is ex-
tinguished in its enjoyment — ^to the great astonishment of
those who are possessed by it. It also becomes extinct when,
through the woman turning out barren (which, according
to Hufeland, may arise from nineteen accidental constitu-
tional defects), the real metaphysical end is frustrated; just
as daily happens in millions of germs trampled under foot,
in which yet the same metaphysical life principle strives for
existence; for which there is no other consolation than that
an infinity of space, time, and matter, and consequently in'
exhaustible opportunity for return, stands open to the will
to live.

The view which is here expounded must once have been
present to the mind of Theophrastus Paracelsus, even if
only in a fleeting form, though he has not handled this sub-

364 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

ject, and my whole system of thought was foreign to him;
for, in quite a different context and in his desultory manner,
he wrote the following remarkable words: ^^Hi sunt, quos
Deus cofulavity ut earn, quoe fuit Urice et David; qiiamvis
ex d'tametro {sic eni?n stbi humana mens fersuadebat^ cum
justo et legitimo m,atrimonio fugnaret hoc. . . . sed frofter
Salomonem, QUI aliunde nasci non potuit, nisi ex
Bathseba, conjuncto David semine, quamvts meretrice, con*
junxit SOS Deus^' {De vita longa, i. 5).

The longing of love, the Ijuegog^ which the poets of all
ages are unceasingly occupied with expressing in innumer-
able forms, and do not exhaust the subject, nay, cannot do
it justice, this longing, which attaches the idea of endless
happiness to the possession of a particular woman, and un-
utterable pain to the thought that this possession cannot be
attained, — this longing and this pain cannot obtain their
material from the wants of an ephemeral individual; but
they are the sighs of the spirit of the species, which sees here,
to be won or lost, a means for the attainment of its ends
which cannot be replaced, and therefore groans deeply. The
»pecies alone has infinite life, and therefore is capable of in-
finite desires, infinite satisfaction, and infinite pain. But
these are here imprisoned in the narrow breast of a mortal.
No wonder, then, if such a breast seems like to burst, and
can find no expression for the intimations of infinite rapture
or infinite misery with which it is filled. This, then, affords
the materials for all erotic poetry of a sublime kind, which
accordingly rises into transcendent metaphors, soaring above
all that is earthly. This is the theme of Petrarch, the ma-
terial for the St. Preuxs, Werthers, and Jacopo Ortis, who
apart from it could not be understood nor explained. For that
infinite esteem for the loved one cannot rest upon some
spiritual excellences, or in general upon any objective, real
qualities of hers; for one thing, because she is often not suf-
ficiently well known to the lover, as was the case w'th

METAPHYSICS OF LOVE OF SEXES 365

Petrarch. The spirit of the jpecies alone can see at one glance
what worth she has for ity for its ends. And great passions
also arise, as a rule, at ihe first glance:

"Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?"

— Shakespeare, "As You Like It," iii. 5.

In this regard a passage in the romance of ^^Guzman de
Alfarachey^ by Mateo Aleman, which has been famous for
250 years, is remarkable: 'Wo es necessariOy 'para que uno
amey que fase dtstancia de t'temfOy que siga discursOy ni haga
elecciofiy sin J que con aquella frimera y sola vtstay concurran
juntamente c'lerta corresfondencia 6 consonanciay 6 lo que
aca solemos imlgarmente deciry una conjrontacion de sangrey
A que for particular infiuxo suelen mover las estrellas.^^
(For one to love it is not necessary that much time should
pass, that he should set about reflecting and make a choice;
but only that at that first and only glance a certain corre-
spondence and consonance should be encountered on both
sides, or that which in common life we are wont to call a
sy?nfathy of the bloody and to which a special influence of
the stars generally impels), P. ii. lib. iii. c. 5. Accordingly
the loss of the loved one, through a rival, or through death,
is also for the passionate lover a pain that surpasses all others,
just because it is of a transcendental kind, since it affects
him not merely as an individual, but attacks him in his
essentia ceternay in the life of the species into whose special
will and service he was here called. Hence jealousy is such
torment and so grim, and the surrender of the )oved one is
the greatest of all sacrifices. A hero is ashamed of all lamen-
tations except the lamentation of love, because in this it is
not he but the species that laments. In Calderon's "Zenobia
the Great" there is in the first act a scene between Zenobi#
und Decius in which the latter says:

"Cielos, luego tu me qtderes?
Perdiera den mil victorias,
VolvUrame" &c

^66 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

(Heaven! then thou lovest me? For this I would lose a
thousand victories, w^ould turn about, &c.)

Here, honour, which hitherto outweighed every interest,
is beaten out of the field as soon as sexual love, i.e.y the in-
terest of the species, comes into play, and sees before it a
decided advantage; for this is infinitely superior to every
interest of mere individuals, however important it may be.
Therefore to this alone honour, duty, and fidelity yield
after they have withstood every other temptation, including
the threat of death. In the same way we find in private life
that conscientiousness is in no point so rare as in this: it is
here sometimes set aside even by persons who are otherwise
honest and just, and adultery is recklessly committed when
passionate love, i.e.y the interest of the species, has mastered
them. It even seems as if in this they believed themselves to
be conscious of a higher right than the interests of indi-
viduals can ever confer; just because they act in the interest
of the species. In this reference Chamfort's remark is worth
noticing: ^^Quand un homme et une femme ont Vun 'pour
Vautre une fassion violentey il me semble toujours que
quelque so'tent les obstacles qui les sefarenty un mariy des
farenSy etc.y les deux amans sont Pun a Pautrey de far la
Naturey quails s^ affartiennent de droit diviny malgre les lots
et les conventions huTnaines.^^ Whoever is inclined to be in-
censed at this should be referred to the remarkable indul-
gence which the Saviour shows in the Gospel to the woman
taken in adultery, in that He also assumes the same guilt in
the case of all present. From this point of view the greater
part of the "Decameron" appears as mere mocking and jeer-
ing of the genius of the species at the rights and interests of
individuals which it tramples under foot. Differences of
rank and all similar circumstances, when they oppose the
union of passionate lovers, are set aside with the same ease
and treated as nothing by the genius of the species, which,
pursuing its ends that concern innumerable generations,

METAPHYSICS OF LOVE OF SEXES 367

blows off as spray such human laws and scruples. From the
same deep-lying grounds, when the ends of passionate love
are concerned, every danger is willingly encountered, and
those who are otherwise timorous here become courageous.
In plays and novels also we see, with ready sympathy, the
young persons who are fighting the battle of their love, i.e.,
the interest of the species, gain the victory of their elders,
who are thinking only of the welfare of the individuals. For
the efforts of the lovers appear to us as much more impor-
tant, sublime, and therefore right, than anything that can be
opposed to them, as the species is more important than the
individual. Accordingly the fundamental theme of almost
all comedies is the appearance of the genius of the species
with its aims, which are opposed to the personal interest of
the individuals presented, and therefore threaten to under-
mine their happiness. As a rule it attains its end, which, as in
accordance with poetical justice, satisfies the spectator, be-
cause he feels that the aims of the species are much to bt
preferred to those of the mdividual. Therefore at the con-
clusion he leaves the victorious lovers quite confidently, be-
cause he shares with them the illusion that they have founded
their own happiness, while they have rather sacrificed it to
the choice of the species, against the will and foresight of
their elders. It has been attempted in single, abnormal come-
dies to reverse the matter and bring about the happiness of
the individuals at the cost of the aims of the species; but
then the spectator feels the pain which the genius of the
species suffers, and is not consoled by the advantages which
are thereby assured to the individuals. As examples of thia
kind two very well-known little nieces occur to me: "La
reine de 16 ans/* and "Le manage de raison.*' In tragedies
containing love affairs, since the aims of the species are
frustrated, the lovers who were its tools, generally perish
also; for example, in "Romeo and Juliet," "Tancred,;*

368 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

''Don Carlos," "Wallenstein," "The Bride of Messina,"
and many others.

The love of a man often affords comical, and sometimes
also tragical phenomena; both because, taken possession of
by the spirit of the species, he is now ruled by this, and no
longer belongs to himself: his conduct thereby becomes un-
suited to the individual. That which in the higher grades of
love imparts such a tinge of poetry and sublimeness to his
thoughts, which gives them even a transcendental and hyper-
physical tendency, on account of which he seems to lose sight
altogether of his real, very physical aim, is at bottom this,
that he is now inspired by the spirit of the species whose af-
fairs are infintely more important than all those which con-
cern mere individuals, in order to found under the special
directions of this spirit the whole existence of an indefinitely
long posterity with this individual and exactly determined
nature, which it can receive only from him as father and
the woman he loves as mother, Jind which otherwise could
never, as such, attain to existence, while the objectification
of the will to live expressly demands this existence. It is the
feeling that he is acting in affairs of such transcendent im-
portance which raises the lover so high above everything
earthly, nay, even above himself, and gives such a hyper-
physical clothing to his very physical desires, that love be-
comes a poetical episode even in the life of the most prosaic
man; in which last case the matter sometimes assumes a
comical aspect. That mandate of the will which objectifies
itself in the species exhibits itself in the consciousness of the
lover under the mask of the anticipation of an infinite
blessedness which is to be found for him in the union with
this female individual. Now, in the highest grade of love
this chimera becomes so radiant that if it cannot be attained
life itself loses all charm, and now appears so joyless, hol-
low, and insupportable that the disgust at it even overcomes
the fear of death, so that it is then sometimes voluntarily

METAPHYSICS OF LOVE OF SEXES 369

cut short. The will of such a man has been caught in the vor-
tex of the will of the species, or this has obtained such a
great predominance over the individual will that if such a
man cannot be effective in the first capacity, he disdains to be
so in the last. The individual is here too weak a vessel to
be capable of enduring the infinite longing of the will of
the species concentrated upon a definite object. In this case,
therefore, the issue is suicide, sometimes the double suicide
of the two lovers, unless, to save life, nature allows mad-
ness to intervene, which then covers with its veil the con-
sciousness of that hopeless state. No year passes without
proving the reality of what has been expounded by several
cases of all these kinds.

Not only, however, has the unsatisfied passion of love
sometimes a tragic issue, but the satisfied passion also leads
oftener to unhappiness than to happiness. For its demands
often conflict so much with the personal welfare of him
who is concerned that they undermine it, because they arc
incompatible with his other circumstances, and disturb the
plan of life built upon them. Nay, not only with external
circumstances is love often in contradiction, but even with
the lover's own individuality, for it flings itself upon per-
sons who, apart from the sexual relation, would be hateful,
contemptible, and even abhorrent to the lover. But so much
more powerful is the will of the species than that of the in-
dividual that the lover shuts his eyes to all those qualities
which are repellent to him, overlooks all, ignores all^ and
binds himself for ever to the object of his passion — so en-
tirely is he blinded by that illusion, which vanishes as soon
as the will of the species is satisfied, and leaves behind a de-
tested companion for life. Only from this can it be ex-
plained that we often see very reasonable and excellent men
bound to termagants and she-devils, and cannot conceive
how they could have made such a choice. On this account
the ancients represented love as blind. Indeed, a lover may

370 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

even know distinctly and feel bitterly the faults of tempera-
ment and character of his bride, which promise him a miser-
able life, and yet not be frightened away: —

**I ask not, I care not,
If guilt's in thy heart,
I know that I love thee
Whatever thou art."

For ultimately he seeks not his own things, but those of a
third person, who has yet to come into being, although he is
involved in the illusion that what he seeks is his own affair.
But it is just this not seeking of one's own things which is
everywhere the stamp of greatness, that gives to passionate
love al:o a touch of sublimity, and makes it a worthy sub-
ject of poetry. Finally, sexual love is compatible even with
the extremest hatred towards its object: therefore Plato has
compared it to the love of the wolf for the sheep. This case
appears when a passionate lover, in spite of all efforts and
entreaties, cannot obtain a favourable hearing on any con-
dition : —

"I love and hate her."

— Shakespeare, Cytnb., i3. 5.

The hatred of the loved one which then is kindled some-
times goes so far that the lover murders her, and then him-
self. One or two examples of this generally happen every
year; they will be found in the newspapers. Therefore
Goethe's lines are quite correct: —

"By all despised love! By hellish element!
Would that I knew a worse, that I might swear by!"

tt is really no hyperbole if a lover describes the coldness of
his beloved and the delight of her vanity, which feeds on his
sufferings, as cruelty; for he is under the influence of an
impulse which, akin to the instinct of insects, compels him,
in spite of all grounds of reason, to pursue his end uncon-

METAPHYSICS OF LOVE OF SEXES 371

ditionally, and to undervalue everything else: he cannot give
it up. Not one but many a Petrarch has there been who was
compelled to drag through life the unsatisfied ardour of
love, like a fetter, an iron weight at his foot, and breathe his
sighs in lonely woods; but only in the one Petrarch dwelt
also the gift of poetry j so that Goethe's beautiful lines hol<i
good of him : — ■

"And when in misery the man was dumb
A god gave me the power to tell ray sorrow."

In fact, the genius of the species wages war throughout
with the guardian geniuses of individuals, is their pursuer
and enemy, always ready relentlessly to destroy personal
happiness in order to carry out its ends; nay, the welfare of
whole nations has sometimes been sacrificed to its humours.
An example of this is given us by Shakespeare in "Henry
VI.," pt. iii., act 3, sc. 2 and 3. All this depends upon the
fact that the species, as that in which the root of our being
lies, has a closer and earlier right to us than the individual;
hence its affairs take precedence. From the feeling of this
the ancients personified the genius of the species in Cupid,
a malevolent, cruel, and therefore ill-reputed god, in spite
of his childish appearance; a capricious, despotic demon, but
f et lord of gods and men :

"2u 5'w Oe<i)v Tvpavve K^apdpuirbtv, Epws!"
(Tu, deorum hominumque tyranne, Amor I)

A deadly shot, blindness, and wings are his attributes. The
latter signify inconstancy; and this appears, as a rule, only
with the disillusion which is the consequence of satisfaction.
Because the passion depended upon an illusion, which
represented that which has only value for the species as valu-
able for the individual, the deception must vanish after the
attainment of the end of the species. The spirit of the species
which took possession of the individual sets it free again.

372 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

Forsaken by this spirit, the individual falls back into its origi-
nal limitation and narrowness, and sees with wonder that
after such a high, heroic, and infinite eifort nothing has re-
sulted for its pleasure but what every sexual gratification
affords. Contrary to expectation, it finds itself no happier
than before. It observes that it has been the dupe of the will
of the species. Therefore, as a rule, a Theseus who has been
made happy will forsake his Ariadne. If Petrarch's passion
had been satisfied, his song would have been silenced from
that time forth, like that of the bird as soon as the eggs are
laid.

Here let me remark in passing that however much my
metaphysics of love will displease the very persons who are
entangled in this passion, yet if rational considerations in
general could avail anything against it, the fundamental
truth disclosed by me would necessarily fit one more than
anything else to subdue it. But the saying of the old comedian
will, no doubt, remain true : ^^Quce res in se neque consiliuniy
neque modum habet ulluniy earn cons'tlio regere non fotes.*'

Marriages from love are made in the interest of the
species, not of the individuals. Certainly the persons con-
cerned imagine they are advancing their own happiness; but
their real end is one which is foreign to themselves, for it
lies in the production of an individual which is only possible
through them. Brought together by this aim, they ought
henceforth to try to get on together as well as possible. But
very often the pair brought together by that instinctive il-
lusion, which is the essence of passionate love, will, in other
respects, be of very different natures. This comes to light
when the illusion vanishes, as it necessarily must. Accord-
ingly love marriages, as a rule, turn out unhappy; for
through them the coming generation is cared for at the ex-
pense of the present. ^^Quien se casa for amoreSy ha de vivir
con dolor es*^ (Who marries from love must live in sorrow),
says the Spanish proverb. The opposite is the case with mar-

METAPHYSICS OF LOVE OF SEXES 373'

riages contracted for purposes of convenience, generally in
accordance with the choice of the parents. The considera-
tions prevailing here, of w^hatever kind they may be, are at
least real, and cannot vanish of themselves. Through them,
however, the happiness of the present generation is certainly
cared for, to the disadvantage of the coming generation, and
notwithstanding this it remains problematical. The man
who in his marriage looks to money more than to the satisfac-
tion of his inclination lives more in the individual than in
the species; which is directly opposed to the truth; hence it
appears unnatural, and excites a certain contempt. A girl
who, against the advice of her parents, rejects the offer of a
rich and not yet old man, in order, setting aside all consid-
erations of convenience, to choose according to her instinc-
tive inclination alone, sacrifices her individual welfare to
the species. But just on this account one cannot withhold
from her a certain approbation; for she has preferred what
is of most importance, and has acted in the spirit of nature
(more exactly, of the species), while the parents advised in
the spirit of individual egoism. In accordance with all this,
it appears as if in making a marriage either the individual or
the interests of the species must come off a loser. And this is
generally the case; for that convenience and passionate love
should go hand in hand is the rarest of lucky accidents. The
physical, moral, or intellectual deficiency of the nature of
most men may to some extent have its ground in the fact
that marriages are ordinarily entered into not from pure
choice and inclination, but from all kinds of external con-
siderations, and on account of accidental circumstances. If,
however, besides convenience, inclination is also to a certain
extent regarded, this is, as it were, an agreement with the
genius of the species. Happy marriages are well known to
be rare; just because it lies in the nature of marriage that its
chief end is not the present but the coming generation.
However, let me add, for the consolation of tender, loving

374 THE PHILOEOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

natures, that sometimes passionate sexual love associates it-
lelf with a feeling of an entirely different origin — real
friendship based upon agreement of disposition, which yet
for the most part only appears when sexual love proper is
extinguished in its satisfaction. This friendship will then
generally spring from the fact that the supplementing and
corresponding physical, moral, and intellectual qualities of
the two individuals, from which sexual love arose, with
reference to the child to be produced, are, with reference
also to the individuals themselves, related to each other in
a supplementary manner as opposite qualities of tempera-
ment and mental gifts, and thereby form the basis of a har-
mony of disposition.

The whole metaphysics of love here dealt with stands in
close connection with my metaphysics in general, and the
light which it throws upon this may be summed up as
follows.

We have seen that the careful selection for the satisfac-
tion of the sexual impulse, a selection which rises through
innumerable degrees up to that of passionate love, depends
upon the highly serious interest which man takes in the
special personal constitution of the next generation. Now
this exceedingly remarkable interest confirms two truths
which have been set forth in the preceding chapters, (i.)
The indestructibility of the true nature of man, which lives
on in that coming generation. For that interest which is so
lively and eager, and does not spring from reflection and in-
tention, but from the inmost characteristics and tendencies
of our nature, could not be so indelibly present and exer-
cise such great power over man if he were absolutely perish-
able, and were merely followed in time by a race actually
and entirely different from him. (2.) That his true nature
lies more in the species than in the individual. For that in-
terest in the special nature of the species, which is the root
of all love, from the passing inclination to the serious pas-

METAPHYSICS OF LOVE OF SEXES 375'

sion, is for every one really the highest concern, the success
or failure of which touches Viim most sensibly j therefore it
is called fc^ excellence the affair of the heart. Moreover,
when this interest has expressed itself strongly and decid-
edly, everything which merely concerns one's own person is
postponed and necessarily sacrificed to it. Through this,
then, man shows that the species lies closer to him than the
individual, and he lives more immediately in the former
than in the latter. Why does the lover hang with complete
abandonment on the eyes of his chosen one, and is ready to
make every sacrifice for her? Because it is his immortal part
that longs after her; while it is only his mortal part that de-
sires everything else. That vehement or intense longing di-
rected to a particular woman is accordingly an immediate
pledge of the indestructibility of the kernel of our being,
and of its continued existence in the species. But to regard
this continued existence as something trifling and insufficient
is an error which arises from the fact that under the con-
ception of the continued life of the species one thinks noth*
ing more than the future existence of beings similar to us
but in no regard identical with us; and this again because,
starting from knowledge directed towards without^ one
takes into consideration only the external form of the species
as we apprehend it in perception, and not its inner nature.
But it is just this inner nature which lies at the foundation
of our own consciousness as its kernel, and hence indeed is
more immediate than this itself, and, as thing-in-itself, free
from the frincifnim indwiduationtSy is really the same and
identical in all individuals, whether they exist together or
after each other. Now this is the will to live, thus just that
which desires life and continuance so vehemently. This ac-
cordingly is spared and unaffected by death. It can attain to
no better state than its present one; and consequently for it,
with life, the constant suffering and striving of the indi-
viduals is certain. To free it from this is reserved for th»

376 THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCHOPENHAUER

denial of the will to live, as the means by which the indi-
vidual will breaks away from the stem of the species, and
surrenders that existence in it. We lack conceptions for that
which it now is; indeed all data for such conceptions are
wanting. We can only describe it as that which is free to be
will to live or not. Buddhism denotes the latter case by the
word Nirvana. It is the point which remains for ever un-
attainable to all human knowledge, just as such.

If now, from the standpoint of this last consideration,
we contemplate the turmoil of life, we behold all occupied
with its want and misery, straining all their powers to satisfy
its infinite needs and to ward off its multifarious sorrows,
yet without daring to hope anything else than simply the
preservation of this tormented existence for a short span of
'':ime. In between, however, in the midst of the tumult, we
4ee the glances of two lovers meet longingly: yet why so
secn/.tly, fearfully, and stealthily? Because these lovers are
the i:raitors who seek to perpetuate the whole want and
drudgery, which would otherwise speedily reach an endj
this i:liey wish to frustrate, as others like them have frus-
trate!^ it before.

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REED, JOHN
RENAN, ERNEST
RICHARDSON, SAMUEL
RODGERS AND

HAMMERSTEIN
ROSTAND, EDMOND
ROUSSEAU, JEAN JACQUES
RUNYON, DAMON
RUSSELL, BERTRAND
SAKI

SALINGER, J. D.
SALINGER, J. D.
SANTAYANA, GEORGE
SCHOPENHAUER
SCHULBERG, BUDD
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM
SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM

SHAKESPEARE, WILLIAM

SHAW, BERNARD
SHAW, BERNARD

SHAW, IRWIN

SHAW, IRWIN

SHELLEY

SMOLLETT, TOBIAS

SOPHOCLES

SOPHOCLES II

SPINOZA

STEINBECK, JOHN

STEINBECK, JOHN

STEINBECK, JOHN

STENDHAL

STERNE, LAURENCE

STEWART, GEORGE R.

STOKER, BRAM

STONE, IRVING

STOWE, HARRIET BEECHER

STRACHEY, LYTTON

SUETONIUS

SWIFT, JONATHAN

SYMONDS. JOHN A.

The Republic 153

The Works of Plato 181

Selected Poetry and Prose 82

The Travels of Marco Polo 196

Selected Works of 257

Flowering Judas 284

Pale Horse, Pale Rider 45

The Captive 120

Cities of the Plain 220

The Guermantes Way 213

The Past Recaptured 278

Swann's Way 59

The Sweet Cheat Gone 260

Within a Budding Grove 172

Six Plays by 194

The Cloister and the Hearth 62

Ten Days that Shook the World 213

The Life of Jesus 140

Clarissa 10

Six Plays by 200

CYRANO de Bergerac 154

The Confessions of 243

Famous Stories 53

Selected Papers of Bertrand Russell 157

The Short Stories of 280

Nine Stories 301

The Catcher in the Rye 90

The Sense of Beauty 292

The Philosophy of Schopenhauer 52

What Makes Sammy Run? 281

Tragedies, 2, 3 — complete, 2 vols.

Comedies, 4, 5 — complete, 2 vols.

Histories, 6 ) , ,

Histories, Poems, 7 r°"^P'^^^'^^°^^-

Four Plays by 19

Saint Joan, Major Barbara, and

Androcles and the Lion 294
The Young Lions 112
Selected Short Stories of 319
The Selected Poetry & Prose of 274
Humphry Clinker 159
Complete Greek Tragedies, Vol. Ill 312
Complete Greek Tragedies, Vol. IV 313
The Philosophy of Spinoza 60
In Dubious Battle 115
Of Mice and Men 29
Tortilla Flat 216
The Red and the Black 157
Tristram Shandy 147
Storm 254
Dracula 31
Lust for Life 1 1
Uncle Tom's Cabin 261
Eminent Victorians 212
Lives of the Twelve Caesars 188
Gulliver's Travels and Other Writings

100
Tlic l.'Sc of ^fich^!.^n;rflo .^9

TACITUS
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THACKERAY, WILLIAM
THACKERAY, WILLIAM
THOMPSON, FRANCIS
THOREAU, HENRY DAVID
THUCYDIDES
THURBER, JAMES
TOLSTOY, LEO
TROLLOPE, ANTHONY
TURGENEV. IVAN
TWAIN, MARK

VASARI, GIORGIO

VEBLEN, THORSTEIN
VIRGIL
VOLTAIRE
WALPOLE, HUGH
WARREN, ROBERT PENN
WEBB, MARY
WEIDMAN, JEROME
WELLS, H. G.
WELTY, EUDORA
WHARTON, EDITH
WHITMAN, WALT
WILDE, OSCAR
WILDE, OSCAR
WILDE, OSCAR
WODEHOUSE, P. J.
WORDSWORTH
YEATS, W. B. (Editor)
YOUNG, G. F.
ZIMMERN, ALFRED
ZOLA, EMILE

The Complete Works of 222

Selected Poetry of 230

Henry Esmond 80

Vanity Fair 131

Complete Poems 38

Walden and Other Writings 155

The Complete Writings of 58

The Thurber Carnival 85

Anna Karenina 37

Barchcster Towers and The Warden 41

Fathers and Sons 21

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's

Court 162
Lives of the Most Eminent Painters,

Sculptors and Architects 190
The Theory of the Leisure Class 63
The Aeneid, Eclogues & Georgics 73
Candide and Other Writings 47
Fortitude 178
All The King's Men 170
Precious Bane 219

I Can Get It For You Wholesale 223
Tono Bungay 197
Selected Stories of 290
The Age of Innocence 229
Leaves of Grass 97
Dorian Gray, Do Profundis 125
The Plays of Oscar Wilde 83
Poems and Fairy Tales 84
Selected Stories 126
Selected Poetry of 268
Irish Fairy and Folk Tales 44
The Medici 179

The Greek Commonw^ealth 207
Nana 142

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An Anthology of Irish Literature 288
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Best Amer. Humorous Short Stories 87
Best Russian Short Stories 18
Best Spanish Stories 129
Complete Greek Tragedies, Vol. I 310
Complete Greek Tragedies, Vol. Ill 312
A Comprehensive Anthology of Ameri-
can Poetry loi
The Consolation of Philosophy 226
Eight Famous Elizabethan Plays 94
Eighteenth -Century Plays 224
Famous Ghost Stories 73
The Federalist 139
Five Great Modern Irish Plays 30
Fourteen Great Detective Stories 144
Great German Short Novels and Stories

X08
Great Modern Short Stories 168

Great Tales of the American West 238

The Greek Poets 203

Stories of Modern Italy n8

A Kierkegaard Anthology 303

The Latin Poets 217

The Making of Man: An Oudinc of

Anthology 149
Making of Society 183
Medieval Romances 133
The Modern Library Dictionary i
New Voices in the American Theatre

258
Outline of Abnormal Psychology 152
Outline of Psychoanalysis 66
Restoration Plays 287
Seven Famous Greek Plays 158
The Short Bible 57
Six Modern American Plays 276
Six American Plays For Today 38
Twentieth -Century Amer. Poetry 127

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G48. THE METROPOLITAN OPERA GUIDE.
G49. TWAIN, MARK. Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.
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G55. O'NEILL, EUGENE. Nine Plays by
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MANN, THOMAS. Stories of Three Decades.

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